Program Uses GPS To Track Sex Offenders

43 sex offenders in Pennsylvania's Allegheny County are wearing GPS monitoring devices as part of a pilot program designed to keep track of their movements. If the offender moves into an "exclusion zone," police are called. “Exclusion zones for example [are] schools, daycares, playgrounds, facilities where children congregate for those sex offenders,” John Hudson, a security consultant, said. “We’ve identified in their red zones. If an offender with a device goes into one of the red zones, an exclusion zone, we’ll be notified immediately.”

Comments

WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

I understand the need to protect the kids. But what about you pay for your previous mistakes and then you can continue with your life if you learned ? So not only this person goes to jail, but he has to pay for the same mistake all of his life ? Where is the justice in that ?

Re:WTF

[spun]

Unfortunately, sex offenders have a very high recidivism rate. Real sex offenders, that is. People do get added to the sex offender list for the wrong reasons, IMHO. But real sex offenders have a disease that is not cured by jail time.

Re:WTF

[rotide]

If you're a danger to society, go to prison. If you're no longer a danger, go free. This gray area of "you're free... but..." is just insulting on so many levels.

Re:WTF

[Omnifarious]

That is a common misconception. In fact, the recidivism rate among people convicted of child molestation is lower than for any other kind of criminal. It is true that there is a core population of child molesters who are incurable recidivists, but that represents less than 10% of the total, and I think less than 5%. Look up real statistics from actual research on criminal behavior and don't rely on the stories fed to you by the media.

Re:WTF

[spun]

So, what do you suggest we do, keep dangerous sex offenders in prison forever? How is that any less cruel than letting them go free, but keeping them away from situations likely to trigger their disease? It's more expensive, as well.

Re:WTF

[rotide]

Look, if you're a danger to society, you should be removed from that society. Don't put people that you've removed from society because they were a danger back into it if you think they still pose a threat. It's just illogical. Plus, if it's a mental disease, prison wasn't the answer in the first place. A mental institution/facility would be more appropriate, don't you think? Only release when rehabilitated enough to no longer pose a threat and/or are "cured".

Re:WTF

[RollingThunder]

Essentially, yes, keep them in prison until they're not a danger.

Of course, it only works to keep them in there if the prison industry is completely thrown on it's ear, and turned from a penal system into a treatment system, trying to rehabilitate instead of just incarcerate.

Remember though that there are different types of "incarceration", and some include home stay or open prisons. In essence, yes, these released people ARE still incarcerated, just in their own homes, and under constant monitoring. That may be the only balance that works.

Re:WTF

[rotide]

No, it's not the same as parole. Parole ends.... The scarlet letter never comes off....

Re:WTF

[alta]

Look, if you're a danger to society, you should be removed from that society.

Finally someone that agrees that we should greatly expand the death penalty!

Re:WTF

[Wyatt Earp]

So we can go the 1960s-2000 US route and life imprisonment, or the Soviet route and medicate and isolate?

I like this third route, track and monitor while letting them have some sort of freedom. It costs less to the tax payer, allows more freedom for the convicted. This program is a condition of their parole, so they've volunteered for this tracking rather than stay in prison.

Re:WTF

[Moryath]

The larger problem is, the recidivism rate is drastically increased by the treatment of those who serve their sentences when they get out. This applies not just to "sex offenders" but just about all of the population.

Can't find a job, can't get a home? Increased recidivism rate. Yet how many jobs ask for a background check and whether you've served jail time in the past X years when you apply, and won't hire anyone with any record at all?

Sex offenders get it really bad because of problems like this. Imagine you're a "sex offender" whose only option, thanks to the "exclusion zones" getting bigger and bigger and overlapping all over, is to live in a shack under a fucking bridge. Now imagine you can't find work because any commute takes you through an "exclusion zone" even if you could find a job. Fuck, even "low income" or manual-labor jobs like construction are out of the question; you are actually under more restrictions than the illegal aliens even if you're desperate enough to work for illegal-alien, under-the-table slave wages.

Step one is reforming the prison system to work more towards rehabilitation and less to "throw them all in a dang pit and forget about it." In this, the Republicans really can be called Retardicans, because they're the ones calling for ever-increasingly-tough "punishments" constantly until the punishments massively outstrip the crimes and tend to serve not to rehabiitate, but forever debilitate the incarcerated so that they'll never be able to reform and rejoin society, ever. Retardicans are responsible for the fact that today's prisons are places where violent gang criminals are taught to be even nastier.

Step two is making sure that, once people get out and reenter society, they're given a chance to actually reintegrate and become productive members. Our current system of "exclusion zones" may help somewhat, but it's far too onerous and makes it impossible for those caught in its web to survive. "Instant GPS phones the cops" is going to mean "fuck, he clipped the edge of it trying to get food in a grocery store" for these amazingly huge zones - a 2500 radius exclusion zone is 5 city blocks' radius.

Re:WTF

[toriver]

... or institute Muslim Sharia criminal law. Same thing.

Re:WTF

[vlm]

Look, if you're a danger to society, you should be removed from that society.

Finally someone that agrees that we should greatly expand the death penalty!

Its funny to look at how ingrained some cultural beliefs are. "There is either picket fence suburbia with a school or daycare every 500 feet and a law preventing being within 500 feet of said building, or .. death".

Somebody with that illness might make an excellent farmhand at a non-family industrial farm, or as part of an all male all adult crew on a ship, or all male all adult construction worker or civil engineering project worker, or some weird child free "colony" type ideas come to mind in certain semi-industrial areas. Probably they couldn't be trusted with working/living at a senior care facility, probably.

I just always laugh a bit at the whole "either the american dream or die trying" attitude.

Re:WTF

[Jane Q. Public]

It's a lot easier to leave fake DNA evidence behind than fake fingerprints...

Re:WTF

[Cwix]

Frankly its not hard to do either. There needs to be some failsafe evidence that the accused is guilty of a capitol offense. If there is no way to do this, well then there should be no capitol punishment.

Re:WTF

[Wansu]

  Putting someone to death without failsafe, bullet proof evidence is wrong.

Convicting people of ANY crime without failsafe, bullet proof evidence is wrong. If wrongfully convicted people are being exonerated from death row, there's bound to be lots more wrongfully convicted persons languishing in prison for lesser offenses.

Most end up there due to prosecutorial abuses. Our justice system is rigged to produce convictions.

Re:WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

But the whole crux of the argument is, "are they a danger?"

The "common knowledge" is that sex offenders are drooling perverts with no self-control.

Statistics and data don't back that up. In fact, they indicate exactly the opposite is true. Sex offenders are the least likely to have committed other crimes, to have damaged property, or caused physical injuries to others outside of of their obvious sex crimes. Being "black" is a much better indicator (statistically speaking only) of future criminal behavior than being a sex offender.

So are they REALLY a danger?

And if so, what does that indicate about other groups which have a higher than usual proclivity to crime, like males in their 40s who have never been married, or people who are on antidepressants?

Did you know, starting about 5 years ago, the greatest danger to kids aged 8-16 today other than accidents is actually suicide? Not abduction or murder, but suicide. Kids are treated like property, are locked up and kept "safe" their whole life and now they're killing themselves in numbers that far outstrip the number of murders and abductions that these wacky behaviors are intended to prevent.

Score one for the good guys, right?

They are locked away

Re:WTF

[Moryath]

I can't tell if you are serious or intending parody. Given that you posted as Anonymous Retard, I'll guess serious.

they had their chance and they blew it

If that's the case, you're arguing for the death penalty? For all "sex offenders"?

Remember that in some jurisdictions, a 19-year-old who has sex with his 15-year-old girlfriend is a "sex offender." "Sex Crimes" laws are enforced just as often because the parents don't like their daughter's boyfriend as because there is actually something involved.

You could be a "sex offender" if as a teenager you sent a cell phone picture of your naughty bits to another teenager.

Or you could become a "sex criminal" if you have consensual sex with someone else, and they decide in a moment of regret afterwards that you really "raped" them. And in cases where you were both drunk out of your minds, technically you both raped each other because neither was "fit" to consent, but guess who the cops are going to charge and who the prosecutor's going to try to convict?

If we had a system where only serious offenders - those who are clearly high age molesting kids, serial rapists, rapists who use serious force like gun or knife or beat someone up - were put under "sex offender" registration and stigma, that'd be one thing. I'd even be ok with changing their status so that they had to go through medical diagnosis to assess the likelihood of recidivism in order to reach parole status, or be transferred to psychiatric care once they were released from prison.

The fact remains, the system we have right now is overbroad and simply does not work. I'd personally argue that Florida's crazy statutes, that force someone to live under a bridge under their "cannot leave the county, cannot live within 2500 feet of the following places", also fall afoul of the US Constitution's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments.

Sad

[Theotherguy_1]

The modern Scarlett Letter. What a sick, sad joke.

Re:Sad

[CyprusBlue113]

Then keep them in jail.

But this "list" is not anything like what you just described. It is in fact mostly public urination, statutory rape based solely on age of consent not actual consent, and the like by the numbers.

Re:Sad

[betterunixthanunix]

we have this basic problem of incarcerating someone for a crime they MIGHT commit, which, most folks find unfair.

Yet nobody finds it unfair that we have lists of people who have to announce their crimes to their neighbours, who are barred from living or working in certain areas, and who have to now walk around with a bracelet on that starts beeping whenever they get "too close" to designated buildings? It has gotten to the point where sex offenders are actually forced to live under a bridge in some areas:

http://www.aclufl.org/tuttle/

If this is not considered unfair, then why should a prison sentence be considered unfair?

Re:Sad

[mldi]

Because child molesters and rapists with amazingly high recidivism rates don't deserve the stigma at all. I'm sure you'd be comfortable hiring one to be a babysitter if that's your view.

False. Try ~5%. That's nothing compared to other crimes. Read this.

Re:Sad

[SirWinston]

I'd say the scarlet letter is the public sex-offender registry, and that we also unreasonably impose a modern form of exile by making too many areas "exclusion zones" where past sex offenders are forbidden to live and work (so they end up living under bridges, at seedy motels etc., and at far greater risk of re-offending). I've actually thought for a long time that better, cheaper GPS technology would create a healthier alternative, but that unfortunately the older laws would never be repealed and we'd just create more layers of cruft on a poor system. That seems to be what's happening here.

Now, what they should do instead of adding GPS tracking on top of public sex offender registries and live/work exclusion zones, is use it _instead_ of those even more draconian measures. If we can track where every past sex offender is at any moment, that in itself is a powerful deterrent--a permanent record of movements would put any such person at the scene of any crime, and knowing there's a 100% chance of getting caught would deter most would-be offenders. Those not deterred, who re-offend even knowing they'd eventually get caught, would clearly be the worst of the worst and could be imprisoned permanently. But that other 99+ percent would be allowed to live normal lives, not be subject to public harassment by having their names and addresses and charges on a publicly accessible list, and be able to be productive citizens provided they don't spend more than a normal commute time traveling through real exclusion zones like school areas. And anyone afraid that their would-be babysitting neighbor or boyfriend shouldn't be left alone with their children could still find out if the guy's a convicted sex offender by asking him to lift his pant legs, but the general public need not know.

That will never happen because no politician wants to be the guy who says, "Yeah, let's get rid of the sex offender registries! We don't need 'em anymore thanks to technology!" But I think it would be a far better solution to the issue.

Uhh..

[Antisyzygy]

I don't really understand why people like this aren't kept in prison. If they have a high chance of committing another crime, enough so this device is warranted, why would you not keep them in prison to protect people? Why not just give every criminal something like this and completely get rid of prison. If you are a violent offender and your blood pressure goes up along with your adrenaline, the cops are called. If you are a thief and you go to the store, a cop is called. It just seems ridiculous that they spend more time and money locking up nonviolent offenders when the only thing our prison system in the US is good at is isolating people from society.

Re:Uhh..

[mark-t]

I believe that cost and lack of space are the key reasons why they are not kept locked up.

Re:Uhh..

[tiberus]

I don't really understand why people like this aren't kept in prison. If they have a high chance of committing another crime

In short simply because it's wrong. Our system of justice (lets not go into it's flaws at the moment) is basically crime -> conviction -> incarceration -> parole (maybe) -> freedom. You can't lock someone up based on what they _might_ do. That's the way the system is supposed to work, criminals are supposed to rehabilitated but, most of us know (believe) it really doesn't work that way.

If you divided "sex-offenders" into two groups 1) those with predilections to a certain behavior (sociopaths, pedophiles, etc) and 2) those who are not. Granted I'm not certain such a line can even be drawn. Case #2 seems simple, incarceration therapy, follow-up should in general lead to a low recidivism rate.

Case #1 is a sticky wicket. Right now, we are pretty much stomping all over their civil rights by treating those 'criminals' the way we do. It's too easy to get the public to support draconian measures that shouldn't pass Constitutional muster (Don't get me wrong, I'd like to choke the bastards with my own hands too but, that's not the point). The other option is to not treat them as criminals but, as someone with an incurable mental disease or defect and institutionalize them. Then the problems becomes, in many states, if there is no chance for a cure (many agree there isn't) you can't commit them unless they are a danger to themselves and society. Legally, most of them don't rise to that level.

I wish I had the answer, I could write a book, do the talk-show circuit and retire for life on a private island.

Re:GPS'es require line of sight

[tophermeyer]

It's not really. But it is a fairly suitable method for making people to feel like they're safe.

Close the centers

[MBCook]

“Exclusion zones for example [are ..] facilities where children congregate for those sex offenders"

How about just closing down the centers for the molesters full of children? Wouldn't that be easier than GPS tracking?

Who thought facilities to supply sex offenders with victims was a good idea in the first place?

Sounds good but..

[Entropy98]

While 1000ft exclusion zones around schools, parks, playgrounds, daycares etc sound like a reasonable idea to most people I've always wondered how difficult it must be to actually go places and obey them.

There are so many schools, etc in most populated areas how is someone supposed to get from one side of town to the next without coming within 1000ft of a schools property? Do they distribute maps? Obeying something like this would require so much effort that I doubt anyone who actually attempted it would be successful.

The local news here once ran a story that 90% of sex offenders live within 1000ft of a bus stop. Makes a great sensationalist story, but I would bet that 90% of all people live close to a bus stop.

Obviously some sex offenders need to be kept away from children, but other than forcing them to live in the middle of nowhere I don't see an easy solution.

And these aren't the only people exclusion zones are applied to, they are also used against people carrying drugs or guns, of course most people completely ignore this unless they are unfortunate enough to get stopped in front of an elementary school with a little marijuana.

Re:Sounds good but..

[Manfre]

I think you're on to something. You can't get more "in the middle of nowhere" than an island. The US needs to establish an island "colony" for the individuals on the list. Given enough time, the colony could even become an independent, thriving country.

Re:Sounds good but..

[betterunixthanunix]

We're halfway there:

http://www.aclufl.org/tuttle/

I just don't get it....

[mark-t]

If a person is going to have to pay for the rest of their lives with such limitations on their freedom, then why not simply execute them and be done with it? Certainly it would have to be loads cheaper than maintaining the infrastructure to manage something like this. Not that I'm saying I'm a proponent of capital punishment in general, but I really don't see the point in continuing to live among other people if one is going to be forever prohibited from functioning as a normal member of society.

Re:I just don't get it....

[Fyz]

GP has a extreme view but his argument is valid as reduction to absurdity. And why indeed not just have them executed? In fact, let's all be honest here and burn them at the stake, because that's what sex offenders actually are in the view of the frothing masses: modern day witches.

Re:Wewease the secwet weapon...

[tophermeyer]

they should just release the gps data to the public so WE can 'keep an eye' on them

Because you're not a law enforcement officer, and when the individual is paroled and reintegrated back to society they deserve just as much privacy protection as you and I.

When you put "'keep an eye' on them" in quotes like that it very strongly implies that you will 'take matters into your own hands' and 'make sure they don't hurt anyone again'. Modern America is no place for paranoid vigilante mob justice.

... i have 2 kids and yes, i should know who they are and if they are preying on my children.

Not all sex offenders predate on children. Some of them are on that list for no other reason than they got drunk and took a leak in a playground. The list is fundamentally broken. In large part because people fail to see sex offenders as being capable of rehabilitation, and feel like they need to 'keep an eye' on them. We have a justice system that includes rehabilitation and parole. If you think people are being released that are a continued threat to your children, your problem is just as much with the parole board as it is with the individual.

Scarlet Letter

[BJ_Covert_Action]

Well Hester Prynne's village would be proud. I am glad that they mark the exclusion zones red on the maps. They have got the Scarlet part of the stigma correct, but they are missing the letter. Let's just carve 'SO' into their foreheads so everyone can be safe from these dastardly outcasts of society....

By the way, just so I don't repeat Orwell's mistake, this comment is not an instruction manual.

I retract my earlier statement

[spun]

It appears you are entirely correct. I had always heard that high recidivism was the reason we treated sex offenders differently. Turns out that sex offenders have a lower recidivism rate than any other class of crime except murder. So why do we treat them differently?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_offender#Recidivism_rates

Re:I retract my earlier statement

[rotide]

Simple answer, punishing boogymen gets people elected/paid.

Re:I retract my earlier statement

[Omnifarious]

We treat them differently because as a society we do not want to think about this sort of crime at all. We don't want to understand it. It's scary and frightening and we would prefer to class those who commit these sorts of crimes as monsters than trying to understand why and what might be broken that would cause these sorts of things to happen.

I also have a theory that every generation has a way of trying to class a group of males as totally unfit. Men and women are born in approximately equal numbers, but in fact we are somewhat polygynous in our actual behavior. This requires getting a large number of males either killed, or out of the dating pool.

That last theory I realize is highly speculative and somewhat trollish. :-)

Re:I retract my earlier statement

[betterunixthanunix]

we are somewhat polygynous in our actual behavior. This requires getting a large number of males either killed, or out of the dating pool.

Or we need to acknowledge that women are promiscuous also; humans are not gorillas.

WTF

[alta]

from the summary:

facilities where children congregate for those sex offenders

know, I'm pretty sure this is a comma placement issue, but if not, just WOW.

We sure are making it easy for sex offenders these days... But if that causes it to call the police, is that entrapment?

Odd.

foolish human...

[TiggertheMad]

If they have a high chance of committing another crime, enough so this device is warranted, why would you not keep them in prison to protect people?

because that is not what prison is for. The legal system is there to punish people for things that they have done, not a place to put people who might do something.

If you are going to use prison to keep 'dangerous' sex offenders off the street, I want at-risk children proactively locked up for life, because they are statistically most likely to become violent criminals. Also, get more illiterate, minorities, and mentally disabled in there too, because they are more likely to cause problems for society.

If someone is a repeat sex offender, they need medical treatment, not prison. But, it seems because the are the unholy scum of the earth in the eyes of society, that proper (and costly) programs to treat them will not be funded. The real problem is the simplistic 'just throw em in prison' attitudes like you expressed.

Re:Wewease the secwet weapon...

[alta]

Eh, I know people are modding you down and whatever, but I have 2 kids, and yeah. I agree, mostly. I think they should have to wear a bracelet that beeps loudly so we'll know who they are. Or something identifyable. A big tatoo on their forhead?

But not everyone. Considering that being 18 and sleeping with your 17yo girlfriend can get you classified as a sex offender, I think this should be selective.

Rape, yes.
Incest, yes.
others? maybe.

Sex offenders have LOW recidivism rates

[ClioCJS]

Stop spreading bullshit. The rate is 5 percent. According to the Office of Justice Programs of the United States Department of Justice, in New York State the recidivism rates for sex offenders have been shown to be lower than any other crime except murder. Another report from the OJP that studied recidivism of prisoners released in 1994 in 15 states accounting for two-thirds of all prisoners released in the United States that year,[4] reached the same conclusion. Read some facts yourself, then verify them with google.

Not being full of bullshit: an easy process.

Re:What "type" of sex offender?

[rjstanford]

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2007/09/11/us-sex-offender-laws-may-do-more-harm-good is a good example of some decent commentary, FWIW. Its sad to me when the threat of someone taking away our right to large-capacity rifle magazines after a political shooting gets a national outcry, but the idea of lifelong movement tracking of people who may have committed victimless misdemeanors decades ago is silently accepted. Probably because anyone who comes out against it is afraid that they'll be branded with the "pro-child-molestor" label... and put on the list.

Not false.

[SuperBanana]

"Sex crime" includes everything from pissing on the side of a building in an alley, to being underage and having consensual sex. Possession of certain pornography counts. Etc.

The wikipedia article you link to, in fact, goes to great lengths to cover all the ridiculous things that make someone considered to be a "sex offender".

Let's also not forget that rape crimes have the highest false-accusal rate of any category of crime; an astounding number of "victims" later admit they filed complaints only for revenge for something else. In fact, the false accusal rate is greater by a factor of ten (I'm too lazy to dig up the FBI and Wikipedia links, sorry.)

So, no shit the recidivism rate is low...most of them are innocent in the first place.

Re:Not false.

[mldi]

I wouldn't say most are innocent, but here's the links you were referring to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_accusation_of_rape

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_allegation_of_child_sexual_abuse

It appears that the false accusation rate with child sex abuse is probably higher than rape, but the numbers they quote is still pretty high (child sex abuse appears to be around 10%, and for rape is 2-8% -- the FBI said 8%). It also varies WIDELY upon the circumstance, location, etc. I can't find figures on other crimes, but if they are lower I'd imagine it's probably because it's harder to pull off as there is not much emotional appeal on the side of the accuser in other crimes (except murder).

With those figures in mind, it doesn't make a big enough impact on the recidivism rate even if you remove the innocents from that figure to claim that recidivism rate is way off. It's still incredibly low, especially by comparison to other crimes.