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GPS tracking of offenders
June 03, 2007
SANDY — "Do you have permission to be outside of this area?" the operator
asks, staring at the computer screen and talking into her headset.
After a moment of listening to the excuse, she frowns and makes a few mouse clicks.
"Your supervising officer will be notified," she says.
The man on the other
end of the conversation is getting the bad news from the TrackerPAL device strapped to his ankle. He's stepped into an
area designated out-of-bounds, and now he's being called on it.
The TrackerPAL is
a newly released offender monitoring system that merges GPS, computer and cell phone technology in one tiny unit powered by
a 20-hour battery.
"Let's take a sex offender," said Randy Olshen, the president
of Utah-based SecureAlert, which makes and markets the TrackerPAL.
"They are told
they need to stay away from schools and parks. So the officer goes into our software and sets exclusion zones around those
areas," he said.
The small, blue, waterproof device straps to an offender's ankle
and tracks their movements using GPS technology.
"They get near that park and, ultimately,
they cross that invisible fence. It immediately sends an alarm to the monitoring center, and within a matter of a minute or
two, the monitoring center is now on the line with them — live," Olshen said.
At a 24-hour monitoring center in Sandy, employees track dozens of offenders' whereabouts. If they step someplace they
shouldn't, an alert pops up on the screen. The cell unit in the TrackerPAL allows operators and offenders to converse
and can get police or probation officers involved. It also puts out a 95-decibel siren if the offender goes into a forbidden
area or is hiding when the police are actively searching for them.
"At the end of
the day, that immediate response helps them rethink whether they're going to re-offend or not," Olshen said.
SecureAlert started out making cell-based alert and GPS systems primarily for elderly people who fall and can't
get up.
"We had an investor that was on a parole board in his state," said Peter
Derrick, the company's marketing director. "He expressed frustration for what's currently out there."
That led to the creation of the TrackerPAL.
The software
can customize out-of-bounds areas to include parks and schools. It can also be used to track curfew and whether someone is
early or late to their job.
"It's a drug park. He's not supposed to be in
this area," Heather Fischer said as she tracked a man on probation who just left a school zone in another state.
She placed a phone call to the local sheriff's office, alerting them about the status of the offender.
"These are our alarms that we get if they go somewhere they're not supposed to be," she said as she alternated
between offender alarms. "Or if they have a zone and they leave early. We get an alarm if their battery starts getting
low."
The TrackerPAL has been used as an electronic leash for gang members.
"They'll put exclusion zones around places that are gang hangouts," Derrick said. "To try to help keep
them from getting together."
Olshen said they have tried to make the device tamper-proof.
It has a heavy duty plastic strap with steel bands and a fiber-optic line inside that sends an alert to the monitoring center
if it is messed with.
An offender can be tracked to within 50 meters, but the technology
does have its limits.
"You do run into the limitation of the 'urban canyons.'
You're in downtown New York and you're limited in the ability to see three satellites to get a location," Derrick
said.
He said it makes it difficult to track, but not impossible. Olshen cautions that TrackerPAL cannot stop someone
determined to commit a crime.
"There is no silver bullet. But that's not the
majority. The majority are the people who comply," he said.
SecureAlert said the
units cost about $400 apiece to make. They are offered to law enforcement agencies for $8 per person, per day. Compare that
to the $65 average daily cost to house a person in jail, Olshen points out.
Former astronaut
Lisa Nowak, who is accused of plotting to kidnap and kill a woman in a bizarre love triangle, is wearing a TrackerPAL. Olshen
told the Deseret Morning News that at one point, he was talking with Paris Hilton's attorneys about equipping the heiress
with a new accessory in lieu of jail time. Hilton has been ordered to serve at least 23 days behind bars.
The devices have been used on adult and juvenile probationers, but Olshen said the growth industry is sex offenders.
"A lot of the laws that have been passed are for sex offenders," he said. "The demand for using this technology
on sex offenders is huge."
The TrackerPAL has been out for less than a year. A growing
number of corrections departments, probation offices and police agencies across the nation are contracting to start using
TrackerPAL systems. About 3,000 units are in 35 states scattered across the United States. Several hundred of them are used
by the Utah Department of Corrections and the Utah County Sheriff's Office.
The Weber
County Sheriff's Office recently acquired one for a probationer who is on home confinement.
"The man we have it on has some serious medical problems. It's hard to keep him in jail," Weber County Sheriff's
Capt. Bert Holbrook said.
The sheriff's office is using it on a trial basis, but so
far is having no problems with the device.
"I see no problem with it at this point,"
Holbrook said. "Probably for our minor offenders, it would be a good thing."
SecureAlert said it plans to expand its invention to alert victims of an offender's movements, such as domestic violence.
"The woman gets this," Olshen said, holding up a phone-like device near the TrackerPAL.
"If he gets too close to her ... if the court order says 2,000 feet and this device gets too close to this device it
sets off an alarm to us and to her. We're on the phone alerting her where he's at. At the same time we're on the
phone to him telling him to stop in his tracks or we set of an alarm."
Source: desertnews.com
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