THE LONG ARM OF THE LAW

Keeping Tabs on Pretrial and Paroled Offenders with Global Positioning
System Satellites

When a convict with a 10-year history of abusing and stalking his ex-wife
made parole in Scott County, Minn., last year, the only thing between him
and his victim was an inconspicuous bracelet prison officials had attached
to his ankle. He paid it no mind and headed straight for his ex-wife.

But before he came within five miles of her, corrections officers were all
over him.

That was the last time that convict underestimated his high-tech ankle gear.

Police now can keep tabs on criminals like this one by using Global
Positioning System (GPS) satellites, the same technology the military uses
to target bomb sites and the U.S. Justice Department uses to zero in on
drug traffickers.

This is the brainchild of Bob Martinez, U.S. drug czar during the Bush
administration and a former governor of Florida. He's marketing the
2-year-old system through his company, Pro Tech Monitoring Inc., Palm
Harbor, Fla.

Martinez grew to be distressed by crimes that took place while offenders
were out on parole or awaiting trial. His reign as drug czar introduced him
to the potential of GPS.

"The military began declassifying GPS in the early 1990s," explains William
Lockwood, vice president of sales and marketing for Pro Tech, the only
company providing this service so far, "so he recognized that using it to
track offenders who were part of the corrections system but not in prison
would be a great civilian use of the technology."

State and county corrections officials agree. Police departments in at
least 16 states use the system known as SMART (Satellite Monitoring and
Remote Tracking) including departments in Lackawanna County, Pa.; Genesee
County, N.Y.; Oakland County, Mich.; and the Florida and Michigan
corrections departments. Officials laud their new ability to keep violent
offenders in check.

In Florida, offenders monitored by GPS have not committed a single felony
while on parole. By contrast, 27 percent of offenders tracked with
traditional electronic monitoring commit felonies within 18 months.

And nationally, 30 percent of all crimes are committed by people under
community supervision.

"We have definitely seen the benefit of behavior modification," said
Richard Nimer, director of program services for the Florida Department of
Corrections. "And while we cannot completely guarantee a victim's safety,
this--short of a prison cell--clearly gives us the best potential for
preventing re-victimization."

The SMART system is appealing because it uses existing technology,
transforming the traditional electronic ankle bracelet from a monitoring
device to a tracking device. It records where a wearer of the bracelet goes
and enables officers to monitor the person's movement via PC-based
workstations and Internet-accessible maps.

Officers can keep track of everywhere someone wearing a bracelet goes,
unlike the old bracelets that only notified officers when a bracelet-wearer
made trips to and from home or work. Police had no idea where the offender
was the rest of the day.

"It was better than nothing, but the person could go to work, commit a
heinous crime, get home on time, and there's no indication that that
individual did anything out of the ordinary," Nimer said. "With this
system, we can determine that they were exactly where they were told to go."

Because convicts knew the limitations of the old bracelets, quite a few of
them would make a run for it. Larry Price, chief of the Probation
Department of Fresno County, Calif., said 700 probationers--some on
traditional electronic monitoring and some on old-fashioned nonmonitored
probation--have fled his district.

"We don't know where [they are]," he said, adding that criminals on
probation nowadays are not all thieves, bad-check writers or juvenile
delinquents. Today, many of the 13,000 offenders under Price's watch
include violent felons who, in his opinion, require constant scrutiny.

Fresno County is the latest county to sign on to the SMART system,
installing a system in November to track domestic violence offenders.

While it is possible to commit crimes on the GPS monitoring system,
Lockwood said, because the system records a criminal's every move, it is
easy to place a suspect at a crime scene. In fact, Florida uses its
monitoring system in conjunction with the Florida Department of Law
Enforcement Crime Mapping Database, an incident reporting system used by
county and city police, to see if bracelet-wearers are nearby as crimes
occur.

Also, criminals can cut their bracelets and attempt to flee with the GPS
system, but an escape is less likely because an alarm sounds in a
monitoring station the second a bracelet is severed. In Florida, one
parolee cut his bracelet, got on an interstate and headed for the border.
But law enforcement officials, aware of exactly when and where the offender
abandoned the bracelet, got right on his trail, put out an all-points
bulletin and located him within hours.

"With a traditional parole program, they could get a 30-day jump on us
because they were only required to meet with their parole officer once a
month," Nimer said. "Now we know immediately if they've cut their bracelet
and we then notify law enforcement and the victim."

Another GPS fault is that the signal can be lost in tunnels or in dense
urban areas. But Pro Tech tries to keep officials informed about what the
offender is doing during these "caution periods."

The device has a motion detector, so even if the GPS signal is lost,
officials know if the offender is on the move and at what speed.

Victims also benefit from the monitoring system. With SMART, corrections
officers can be notified if an offender is not at a certain place at the
required time or if he comes near prohibited areas. For instance, an alarm
would sound at a monitoring station if a domestic abuser comes near his
victim's home or if a pedophile approaches a school. In addition,
victims--outfitted with pagers and cell phones--are paged as soon as an
offender penetrates a "hot zone" so that they have time to leave the area
or call 911.

"Everyone feels a lot safer," said George Miller, manager of community
corrections in Oakland County, Mich., which uses the SMART system on some
people accused of assault but who have made bail.

Miller said his department educates victims, who must give their permission
before SMART can be used. Victims are told about the benefits and
limitations of the system.

Fresno County's Price said this technology especially is relevant in his
county, where the domestic violence caseload has nearly tripled in the past
two years. And with 145 officers monitoring 13,000 probationers, the
caseloads average one officer for every 150 juveniles and one officer for
every 400 adults.

"That's absolutely ludicrous," Price said.

Paying for such a high-tech and sophisticated system might seem
prohibitive, but SMART can be affordable.

Monitoring stations use Microsoft Corp. Windows-based software and the
initial Internet setup costs are minimal. Pro Tech will lease the
monitoring equipment to the governments, and some of the costs can be
passed on to offenders.

In Fresno County, for example, probationers who once paid $7 to $10 a day
for the electronic ankle bracelet system now pay up to $16 a day for GPS
monitoring. If the convicts were to remain in jail, the state and county
could pay as much as $75 a day for adults and $100 a day for juveniles.

"It's usually pretty easy to get adult offenders to pay because the
alternative is jail," Price said, adding that the department is pushing
legislation that would force parents to pay for juvenile costs associated
with house arrest.

Despite the Orwellian nature of using satellites to keep an eye on
lawbreakers, constitutional watchdogs have yet to challenge SMART. Kara
Gotsch, a public policy coordinator for the American Civil Liberties
Union's National Prison Project, said the system can be a plus to keep
offenders out of crowded prisons.

"We have such a high incarceration rate, we need to look at other means of
punishing people," Gotsch said.