California leads the country in GPS supervision. The article below explores how California law enforcement is increasingly relying on the technology. Watch the accompanying video to find out what happened when reporter Jude Joffe-Block was strapped with a GPS ankle bracelet.<\/p>\n
Law enforcement agencies across the country are using GPS technology more and more to probationers and parolees. But nowhere in the nation is the technology more prevalent than in California, where use of GPS ankle bracelets is expanding.<\/p>\n
The number of Californians tracked on GPS monitors jumped after voters approved Proposition 83\u2014a 2006 ballot initiative also known as \u201cJessica\u2019s Law\u201d that mandated lifetime GPS monitoring for convicted sex offenders released from prison. As a result, three years later parole authorities implemented GPS monitoring of all of the state\u2019s roughly 6,500 paroled sex offenders\u2014the largest population tracked in the U.S. After the initiative passed, more county probation offices across the state also invested in GPS units.<\/p>\n
Parole agents can use the bracelets to monitor whether individuals are complying with home curfews, mandatory treatment programs, or staying away from restricted zones, such as a victim\u2019s home or places where children congregate. They can also use the technology to determine an individual\u2019s current location or review their movements over a certain period of time.<\/p>\n
\u201cCalifornia has been ahead of the curve using these mechanisms,\u201d said University of California Hastings College of the Law professor, Hadar Aviram. \u201cParticularly with its decision to monitor all registered sex offenders using GPS.\u201d<\/p>\n
While sex offender supervision initially drove California\u2019s GPS trend, law enforcement agencies across the state are beginning to use electronic monitoring to track other kinds of offenders and as an alternative to incarceration.<\/p>\n
At the start of the year, the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation began expanding its use of GPS supervision to track the most dangerous gang members on parole. So far, about 800 gang members are tracked across the state and the department says 200 more will be added in the coming months.<\/p>\n
Stanislaus County in the Central Valley originally acquired 20 bracelets from GPS vendor B.I. Incorporated at a cost of $8.70 a day each to comply with sex offender supervision requirements. Now the county uses the technology to help enforce a gang injunction against Norte\u00f1o gang members in a southern Modesto neighborhood.<\/p>\n
“It became clear to me very quickly that the technology shouldn\u2019t be limited to just sex offenders,\u201d said Stanislaus County Chief Probation Officer, Jerry Powers. \u201cAnd frankly, the technology might not be best utilized by sex offenders. It might be better utilized by other offenders.”<\/p>\n
Since the gang injunction prevents named gang members from associating or being out past 10 p.m. in a certain Modesto neighborhood, probation officers can use GPS data to check whether probationers are compliant and send violators to jail.<\/p>\n
Powers says GPS monitoring works well when geography plays into offenders\u2019 criminal activity, such as is the case with gangs or domestic violence cases with restraining orders in place. In contrast, he said, GPS data is not as likely to reveal clues about whether or not a sex offender is reoffending.<\/p>\n
Putting GPS devices on gang members can also provide law enforcement with additional insights into how the gang operates.<\/p>\n
“It is kind of like a second pair of eyes for us,\u201d said Froilan Mariscal, a criminal investigator with the Stanislaus County District Attorney’s office.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe stigma of having the GPS on them made them persona non grata with their gang friends,\u201d said Powers. \u201cIf they were there, that meant that we knew that they were there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some police and sheriff\u2019s departments have formed partnerships with parole that allow the agencies to tap into the GPS software to find out if a parolee with an ankle bracelet was at the scene of an unsolved local crime.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat has helped us make some arrests,\u201d said Kurt Smith, Crime Analysis Manager at the San Diego County Sheriff\u2019s Department. \u201cIt has helped us prove who potential suspects were.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some agencies are looking to GPS and other forms of electronic monitoring as a solution to overcrowded jails and prisons.<\/p>\n
California parole authorities are piloting a program that uses electronic monitoring to place parole violators on home arrest, instead of sending than send them back to prison. With the technology, parole agents will know when parolees are inside their homes and when they are not.<\/p>\n
UCLA public policy professor Mark Kleiman says expanding this form of so-called \u201cvirtual incarceration\u201d is the answer to California\u2019s prison crisis.<\/p>\n
Kleiman says that if the supervision on an offender in his own home is sufficiently strict, \u201cYou can fully punish him for what he did in the past and prevent him from what he might do in the future\u2014without paying his room and board bill.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kurt Smith at the San Diego County Sheriff\u2019s office said his department is researching how it might possibly use GPS technology as an alternative to jail in the future. \u201cIs there justice in sentencing that includes GPS monitoring rather than incarceration?\u201d Smith asked. \u201cThat is the question we have.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the growth in use of the technology, corrections leaders are still quick to point out that law enforcement’s use of the technology is still at a formative stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe GPS as a supervision tool is an ever-evolving new technology,\u201d said Scott Kernan, undersecretary for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.<\/p>\n
So far, the state\u2019s prominent sex offender supervision program has not been without controversy. The program drew criticism after it was revealed that parole agents did not review the movements of sex offenders enlisted on the state\u2019s \u201cpassive\u201d GPS monitoring program for sex offenders classified as low risk offenders. Phillip Garrido, the man who is accused of kidnapping Jaycee Lee Dugard and holding her prisoner for 18 years, was outfitted with a GPS ankle bracelet in 2008, but wasn’t closely watched. While convicted child molester John Gardner wore a GPS bracelet, he violated his parole numerous times, but the transgressions went undetected. Less than a year and a half after he was released from parole, he raped and murdered two teenage girls.<\/p>\n
Parole authorities have convened a taskforce of experts this summer to revise the protocols for how parole officers utilize GPS data to make sex offender supervision more effective.<\/p>\n
Dave DeGeorge of Satellite Tracking of People, a GPS vendor that holds several contracts in California, says while GPS is a valuable tool, the public should not expect the technology to stop a determined offender from committing new crimes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not a silver bullet,\u201d said DeGeorge. \u201cIt is not going to prevent crime. I want to make sure that everyone in this ballpark understands what it can and can\u2019t do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
News21 reporter Jude Joffe-Block spends a week under GPS supervision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":397,"parent":147,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"template-video.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-153","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/berkeley.news21.com\/behindbars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/berkeley.news21.com\/behindbars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/berkeley.news21.com\/behindbars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/berkeley.news21.com\/behindbars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/berkeley.news21.com\/behindbars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"http:\/\/berkeley.news21.com\/behindbars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":534,"href":"http:\/\/berkeley.news21.com\/behindbars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/153\/revisions\/534"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/berkeley.news21.com\/behindbars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/147"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/berkeley.news21.com\/behindbars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/berkeley.news21.com\/behindbars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}