Originally published August 9 2005
States plan to monitor sex offenders with GPS
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
A law that has civil rights experts up in arms has been passed in four states to use GPS to monitor sex offenders throughout their entire lifetimes.
At least four states -- Florida, Missouri, Ohio and Oklahoma -- passed laws this year requiring lifetime electronic monitoring for some sex offenders, even if their sentences would normally have expired.
Similar bills have been proposed in Congress and other states, including North Dakota and Alabama, where lawmakers this week approved legislation and sent it to the governor.
But some civil-rights experts and defense attorneys contend such requirements are too onerous and attach the stigma and inconvenience of electronic anklets and GPS transmitters to those who may never commit a crime again.
GPS monitoring makes sense for a small group of high-risk offenders, evaluated case-by-case, said John La Fond, a law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and author of the recently published book Preventing Sexual Violence.
"A law that requires that everyone who has committed a crime against a young child should be subject to lifetime locator technology is simply foolish," La Fond said.
After a registered sex offender was charged in March with killing 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford, Florida legislators quickly mandated tougher prison sentences for people who commit sex offenses against children and required lifetime GPS monitoring after serving time.
People on the tracking system must wear the electronic waterproof ankle bands at all times and stay within a certain distance from their separate GPS transmitters, which can be carried on belts, in purses or set down on desks and tables when at work or home.
Part of what makes the technology attractive is the ability to trigger automatic alerts to law enforcement authorities -- by e-mail, cell phone text messages or faxes -- whenever sex offenders approach off-limits areas like a school or stray from their designated route between work and home.
Pro Tech Monitoring already uses GPS technology to follow about 5,000 people on parole, probation and house arrest in 38 states, said Richard Nimer, its vice president for business development.
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