Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 08:47:41 -0500 From: "Allen L. Barker" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: "we want to create a jail without walls"
[This article should not surprise anyone on the list. We all knew that the first public, non-secret home/body incarcerations would be carried out on sex offenders. And we all know that it will not end there. Welcome to the community as a "virtual jail."] January 31, 2002 Some States Track Parolees by Satellite By JENNIFER 8. LEE TAMPA, Fla. -- THEY call it being on the box. It's not prison. It's not freedom. It's a gray area between. John Zadrayel, a 40-year-old convicted sex offender, has been on the box for a year, a condition of his parole after 14 years in prison. The box, a four-pound electronic device that resembles a transistor radio, lets parole officers know exactly where he is at all times. It calculates his location using the Global Positioning System, a network of 24 satellites 12,000 miles above the earth. Mr. Zadrayel carries the box around with him all the time, even when he is bicycling from his rented room to his job as a cook in a local restaurant. Some nights he wakes up thinking about it. He wears a wireless bracelet, locked around his ankle, that transmits a signal to the box to let it know he's there. When he leaves his room to watch the ducks in a neighboring pond, he has to remember to stay within 100 feet of the box. If he were to stray too far or abandon the box completely, he would be in violation of his parole and could be sent back to prison. Mr. Zadrayel is one of about 1,200 offenders nationwide who are using G.P.S. monitoring devices as a condition of their parole or probation or as a form of house arrest. They are a small but growing fraction of the 150,000 offenders in the United States who are subject to more established forms of electronic supervision like home monitoring systems and mandatory telephone checks. Traditional systems, many of which also use ankle bracelets but without G.P.S., can only confirm whether a person is at a designated place at a designated time. G.P.S. devices allow the authorities to check up on an offender at any time. Although the technology is relatively new and not without glitches, criminologists say that improved monitoring may help governments address the longstanding problem of how to protect the public without resorting to the further incarceration of criminals. Systems like the box, they say, also offer a glimpse of a future in which imprisonment may be more a function of technology than of bricks and bars. By tracking parolees' movements in real time - and notifying the authorities immediately when violations occur - the system offers a measure of reassurance to local residents when there are criminals in their midst. "Very few people get locked up for the rest of their lives," said Peggy Conway, editor of The Journal of Offender Monitoring. "Ultimately these people are going to live in the community." More precise monitoring and tracking may also prompt the authorities to release some prisoners earlier, or even eliminate prison sentences for some first-time offenses. In Florida, it costs $45 a day to keep someone in the state prison system, compared with about $10 a day for surveillance with the G.P.S. device. Currently 27 states are using some type of satellite surveillance, and some provinces in Canada are also considering using the technology. Florida has been the most eager adopter, with almost 600 offenders on the box, partly because Pro Tech Monitoring, the leading G.P.S. surveillance company, is based in the state. "It's like Big Brother," said Jim Sommerkamp, a senior probation supervisor here in Hillsborough County, who supervises Mr. Zadrayel using Pro Tech's system, known as Satellite Monitoring and Remote Tracking. And in this case, officials say, Big Brother is a good thing. People who have committed crimes once are likely to commit them again; about half of those released from prison are convicted of a new crime within three years. As a constant reminder that the government is watching, G.P.S. monitoring may discourage repeat crimes. [...] Adoption of the technology has been somewhat slow because the state and local authorities are reluctant to commit themselves to a system that still has rough edges. For one thing, the G.P.S. satellite signals are often blocked when offenders are inside buildings or outside in areas with many tall buildings. (If a signal is lost for more than a few minutes, an alert is sent.) The system is also not suitable for rural areas where the local cellphone infrastructure may be inadequate. The monitoring is also labor-intensive: at $10 a day, Pro Tech's system costs twice as much as traditional electronic monitoring. "Many states say it's too expensive, it's too bulky, it's too unreliable," Dr. Johnson said. "Until they fix some of those problems, they're not going to consider it." But as the technology matures, satellite tracking will inevitably be an important part of the penal system, experts say. "We want to create a jail without walls in the community - a virtual jail," Ms. Conway said. "You can reinforce positive community behavior - going to work, going to a prescribed treatment program, not being in crime-opportunity areas." [...] -- Mind Control: TT&P --> http://www.datafilter.com/mc Allen Barker
