We all believe that the tracking of sex offenders with GPS is a great idea. GPS tracking technology has the power to save money, make communities safer, and aid in the integration of individuals back into society. That is the argument anyway that many proponents of the system make – including the GPS tracking companies who profit from the system.
But there are inherent flaws in the system that end up creating quiet the buzz on news websites all over the Internet. The latest is the escape of a Spokane, Washington sex offender. He decided that he was not going to wear his court appointed GPS tracking device so he disabled it.
The Spokesman-Review reported it this way:
A 43-year-old convicted sex offender considered likely to reoffend disabled his GPS tracking device and was last seen in downtown Spokane on Thursday.
James Broady Artis is wanted on a warrant for escape from community custody, according to the Spokane police.
Artis, a level 3 sex offender, is a drug user who may be armed, police said. Artis was released from prison in August 2005 after serving three years for burglary.
He was also convicted of second-degree assault with a deadly weapon and indecent liberties with a woman, whom he threatened to kill with a knife during the sexual assault, according to previous reports.
Now, the clear implication of this article is that there is a lot that can go wrong when one of these devices is used. Here they are in bullet form:
- The sex offender can break or disable his tracker, making it useless for police to use.
- Often, these trackers are data loggers rather than real time GPS tracking devices. As such they do not provide information in real time about the position of the offender in the case of them breaking the law again.
While these two problems with the system might not seem that significant, they really are. If a convict can remove their device or forgo detection because the data on the device hidden from the police then the sex offender GPS tracking is not working as it ought and needs to be rethought some more by policy makers and GPS tracking manufacturers.