California Tracks Parolees With GPS, Then Ignores Alerts 160
An anonymous reader writes "Several years ago, California decided to require high-risk parolees, such as gang members and sex offenders, to wear GPS monitoring devices. The idea was to relay location information to law enforcement to ensure that the convicts stay where they're supposed to. Unfortunately, the state often misses acting on those alerts, making the devices both a lesson in the pitfalls of technology management and a massive exercise in largely useless spending."
Won't somebody think of the children! (Score:2, Insightful)
or at least I'd like to know WHY nobody acted on it, maybe he had no budget to do anything?
Re: (Score:2)
Really, I'd like to know who was in charge of the system, that way I can never hire the guy. or at least I'd like to know WHY nobody acted on it, maybe he had no budget to do anything?
Probably the are underfunded and have already too many bigger problems they don't have time to investigate.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Won't somebody think of the children! (Score:4, Insightful)
Hey, they don't have time for that.
But notice that they know every time Lindsy Lohan has had a drink and it shows up on her device...
Re: (Score:2)
No, with her you just assume she's drinking, use the GPS to locate her and well..you're never wrong.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe so, but they still have time to deal with a high profile case like her before the sex offenders.
Re:Won't somebody think of the children! (Score:5, Insightful)
Convicted violent felons violating the terms of their parole don't represent a sufficiently big enough problem to investigate? Hell, there wouldn't even be a long drawn out investigation. *keystrokes*, "Hmm, looks like he is at Sams Club, send a radio car to that location...."
This is California. You think they have gas money for their patrol cars to get them to the parole violator's location? Let alone the money for additional cops who aren't making money for the state (such as speeding tickets or issuing other fines)?
Re: (Score:2)
"Convicted violent felons violating the terms of their parole don't represent a sufficiently big enough problem to investigate?"
Not in California.
Their society reflects the choices citizens and government make.
Re: (Score:2)
Wouldn't be like that. It's a GPS system, so it's not going to work very well indoors, inside cars with metallised window darkening, vans, etc. So more likely the last location update that it's going to send out is the location at which the convicted (I hope) felon (probably, if the courts are any thing better than 50% accurate. which is a separate question.)
Re: (Score:2)
I've heard of such things, but I wonder why (apart from "brand recognition" for the sheeple) they bother to call it GP-Satellite, when it also requires cellular networking, data connections, "assistance servers" and probably Jan Pierce's grey mare too.
There's also the not-trivial detail that I've spent most of the last 2 weeks over 3 miles from the nearest
Re:Won't somebody think of the children! (Score:5, Insightful)
I then assume that the body required to implement this project then likely said: "Sure, we can do that, but we need more money."
on being denied that money, I would have expected them to take this to the press. get some public attention to look at the matter, see why the government is proposing solutions that there's no money for.
Re: (Score:2)
Upgrade the system to a wedlock [google.se]-like system. That will serve as a great incentive for the wearers.
Re:Won't somebody think of the children! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, jails are built for economic reasons too. They are built to optimize the returns for politicians and their clients.
What jails are not necessarily built to do is be part of a rational, effective response to crime.
As an engineer, how would you optimize the use of a limited budget to reduce crime? You'd start with some kind of model. What kinds of crimes and criminals are there? What are the situations in which criminals commit crimes. Then you'd work out interventions to take in each case. One of
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
damn I wish I could mod this up.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
One of the biggest problems in that the law does not differentiate between the Pedo that rapes a little kid and an 18 year old who bones his 16 year old girlfriend or the 70 year old weenie wagger.
Re: (Score:2)
The victims are not your friends, your family, and hopefully, not you.
Re: (Score:2)
The victims are not your friends, your family, and hopefully, not you.
Um.., this is typical of a lot of sentiment. Our system of justice is based on being presumed innocent until proven guilty, and our country on the basis of individual freedoms.
Therefor, our society is based on freedom - and that includes the freedom to commit crimes. We are not, and never should be, in the business of preventing crimes. You and I are free to commit whatever crimes we want to, whenever we want to. THAT is freedom.
That being said, we will all individually PAY for our crimes - there are
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The victims are not your friends, your family, and hopefully, not you.
The crux of the matter is the assumption that all use is damaging abuse.
For the sake of argument, assume that you mentioned drinking some beers last weekend. Unless you give a solid reason to believe otherwise, the assumption is that you used alcohol responsibly, you didn't drive drunk, you didn't beat your wife, you didn't get fired for being drunk on the job, etc. You had some beer, stayed home, watched a movie or something, and went to bed.
Because of that, if I said that it would be wrong to put
Re:Won't somebody think of the children! (Score:5, Insightful)
What are you talking about? The system worked perfectly:
- the leaders spent a lot of money
- they bragged about it in their monthly newsletters
- the voters FELT safe and happy
This system worked just as planned by the politicians. They made Californians feel safe and happy and warm inside. Bread and circuses.
Re:Won't somebody think of the children! (Score:4, Insightful)
I share your emotional reaction to this budget exercise a lot. A lot.
But. I think that there still might be some positive outcome from this: at least in the beginning parolees had a feeling that they are being watched and that feeling may be prevented them from committing more crime than they would have committed without GPS devices. This is just a hypothesis which quite hard to check: crime statistics dynamics depends on many factors and it is impossible to separate the influence of just one of them.
Of course now that they know (or at least those of them who are avid readers of signonsandiego or slashdot) that nobody cares about their latitudes and longitudes, this factor is probably gone.
Re:Won't somebody think of the children! (Score:5, Interesting)
So if a crime is committed somewhere, it will be relatively easy to check whether any of the paroled felons were in the vicinity when it happened.
So, deterrence factor against committing further crimes will still exist.
Re: (Score:2)
The GPS devices don't request their position from a satellite. They triangulate their position from the time differences between signals from a bunch of satellites so a GPS tracking device has to either log the current position every one and then (offline tracking) or it is actually a GPS/GSM (or whatever mobile communication system is used) online tracking device which periodically sends its position data to some remote box.
Sorry for nitpicking, but I am working in the vehicle tracking field for 7 years no
Re: (Score:2)
I see. But then, since they are already tracking the convicts - I mean, they aren't using those GPS receivers just for navigation - the data has got to be stored somewhere.
Re: (Score:2)
I disagree with the cynical premise of your post, and with the bias of the articles in general.
The question is: Did the system work better than what was used before? A single incident demonstrates a problem in the system, but doesn't answer the question of the general effectiveness of the system compared to alternatives.
Re: (Score:2)
No the question is: Did the new system work better than the old system PER CAPITA? If the new system cost 1 million per parolee caught outside his assigned zone, versus $100,000 per parolee caught, then the older system was better.
And I'm cynical because the fact politicians spent money on a new system, but failed to hire people to track its output, indicates to me they were never serious. They just wanted something to put in their "re-elect me" pamphlets.
Re: (Score:2)
1) I agree with your point about cost.
2) What I dislike about the articles and the bulk of the responses is that they don't appear to contain information that answers either my original question, or your modification of that question.
It's very easy to say "that's an ineffective waste of money, because it LOOKS like the kind of wasteful, ineffective spending we see all the time."
It's WAY more useful to say, "This costs $XXX more/less per parolee than our alternatives, and does these things we want better/wor
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
or at least I'd like to know WHY nobody acted on it,
Because they don't care. They don't *have* to. They're government workers. It's almost impossible to get fired from a government job in this state. They sit around not caring, spending other people money, and then retire early with a golden pension and health benefits. *That's* what is bankrupting the state. The public employee unions have complete and total control over the state legislature, but all the ideologues sit around in their reality bubbles and echo chambers blaming everything else.
There was a hi
Re:Won't somebody think of the children! (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd suggest it has nothing to do with government workers. Its like that fancy system monitoring software you got for your IT department. Shows all kinds of alarms and alerts - they they cut your entire department. Are you going to spend your day acting on alarms, or answering help desk emails? If your time is split between all that - stuff is going to slip by the wayside.
Re: (Score:2)
Yet every time Britney spears gets in trouble, they have an escort of 20 cop cars to help clear through the paparazi....
dear unions: (Score:3, Insightful)
at one time, when gilded age corporatist assholes employed pinkerton's thugs to kneecap guys just trying to earn enough to feed his children, unions were heroic and noble
in today's day and age, a union is nothing more than a lottery ticket for lazy assholes to earn way way more than middle class salaries, for doing far less, and be accountable and responsible for nothing
additionally, no one can afford to manufacture anything here anymore because of union mandated salary levels, so everything is now done in
Re: (Score:2)
unions are an epiphenomenon of the underlying cause.
Re:dear unions: (Score:5, Insightful)
additionally, no one can afford to manufacture anything here anymore because of union mandated salary levels, so everything is now done in chinese sweatshops. a committed anti-corporatist would respond it is the corporatists who drive jobs out of the country, not the unions. to which i would respond that that is easy to say, until you actually have to buy the goods with the sticker shock attached to them just so a union member can have lavish benefits and upper middle class salaries well beyond yours
You're repeating the standard conservative (I hesitate to say republican these days) ideology. And it's not without merit. But I think everyone has it backwards. I don't think union workers are over-paid. I think the rest of us are under-paid. When a government official says that inflation is low and that it's a good thing, they mean wage inflation. Wages have been stagnant here for more than a decade. Maybe, just maybe, the unions have it right. The difference is that they have had the power to prevent the wage stagnation for their members that the rest of us have been powerless to stop. And for that I blame the corporatists. So when you look at the cost of something made in america and feel sticker shock, maybe it's because you're not making enough, and the value of the dollar has been eroded.
You feel like you're making more than your parents and grand-parents did, because the absolute number is higher. But in terms of purchasing power, you're making much less. Those union workers we like to complain about are actually living the way our grandparents did. This is the real reason for your sticker shock. Do they deserve to live like us? Or do we deserve to live like them?
well yeah (Score:2, Insightful)
it would be great if we all made $150K a year. now enunciate the real world plan in which that is possible
thought so
all you have is wish fulfillment fantasy, not valid social commentary
i actually consider myself quite liberal and have voted Democratic all my life. but when it comes to unions, i see only a bloated historical anachronism that does more harm than good
150k FOR EVERYONE!!? (Score:3, Insightful)
ALL unionized workers get paid that much? Really?
Oh... wait... you were generalizing and putting up a straw man, I get it.
now enunciate the real world plan in which that is possible
You mean a world where everyone makes unionized workers' salaries, benefits and protection and not the actual straw man 150k you mention above?
Easy.
The same one where CEOs DON'T get rewarded by 6 and 7-figure salaries and bonuses regardless if they bring the economy to its knees.
Also... The same one where both CEOs and workers consider a sum like 150k a year "a shitload of money".
this is the problem: (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/21/business/economy/21pension.html [nytimes.com]
now you tell me: do i have valid grounds to find this unacceptable?
you introduce a false conflict: that if i stand against the union stooge, that i must by some inference be supporting the ceo making 7 figures while his company crashes and burns
why can't i hate both?
why can't i hate the coddled union stooge AND the coddled ceo, at the same time?
and, most importantly, i reject the notion we should all make the same amount. please tell me we don't need to go into a remedial education about why communism fails
i support capitalism with socialist safety nets. or socialism with capitalist engines. whatever. i simply am complaining about these union stooges obviously getting away with murder. just as much murder as the ceo scumbags with the golden parachutes from the companies they helped destroy
Also... Why SAME salary? (Score:2)
I didn't say ANYTHING REMOTELY CLOSE TO THAT.
Here...
You mean a world where everyone makes unionized workers' salaries, benefits and protection and not the actual straw man 150k you mention above?
Where exactly do I say "same amount"?
Also, I have EXPLICITLY argued against your "150k for everyone" straw man.
i support capitalism with socialist safety nets. or socialism with capitalist engines. whatever. i simply am complaining about these union stooges obviously getting away with murder. just as much murder as the ceo scumbags with the golden parachutes from the companies they helped destroy
Oh please... Now you are comparing a unionized employee making couple of thousands more in benefits to a CEO literally STEALING millions?
Pleaaaase...
Face it - you are NOT for "capitalism with socialist safety nets. or socialism with capitalist engines.".
I'm guessing that you would like to be, maybe because you have personal issues with your life s
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Consider fire fighters. Smoke inhalation, heavy exertion, burns, broken bones, frostbite - you name it. My father in law is a retired fire fighter and he has gnarled fingers, circulatory problems, a bad back, some burns, missing teeth, digestive problems, the list goes on.
Doing that for 30 years, then ret
hard working police officers? (Score:2)
retiring at 40? making 6 figures for the rest of his life for doing nothing?
i'm sorry, but you set up again a false conflict: that if i think that that financial arrangement is abusive of taxpayers, then i hate police officers. why can't i respect police officers, support their right to make a good income, and reject this highly abusive pension arrangement? of course i can do that. so stop smearing my words, asshole
i'm through talking to you. you aren't able to talk about the issues, you have to continually
Ha-HA! You have fallen into my clever little trap (Score:2, Flamebait)
i'm sorry, but you set up again a false conflict: that if i think that that financial arrangement is abusive of taxpayers, then i hate police officers.
That was SARCASM... fucking asshole.
Also, there is nothing abusive about Tassone's pension agreement.
RTFM - the guy was planning to retire after 20 years.
So, he busted his ass for that time, pulling in as much overtime as he could.
He also suffered injuries in the line of duty.
Those 20 years are probably more like 30-40 years of 9-to-5 work, but he did them in 20.
Good for him.
Should everyone be allowed to do the same?
Work hard, pull in as much overtime as you can (and have it on record as such), put in as mu
To the mod who marked the post above "Flamebait": (Score:2)
Read the post above that one and THEN tell me I am the one flaming.
Re: (Score:2)
How do you call it when person A (e.g. circletimessquare) calls person B (say... me) an "asshole" and a "fucking asshole", to which person B replies with:
That was SARCASM... fucking asshole.
If anything, I've let him off easy.
Re: (Score:2)
it would be great if we all made $150K a year. now enunciate the real world plan in which that is possible
thought so
all you have is wish fulfillment fantasy, not valid social commentary
i actually consider myself quite liberal and have voted Democratic all my life. but when it comes to unions, i see only a bloated historical anachronism that does more harm than good
I agree that there are serious problems with unions these days. But we have a bigger problem. $150k a year sounds like a lot to you only because no one you know is making that much. What if everyone were making $150k a year? It wouldn't sound like that much to you. And people making $300k a year would be making a huge amount of money.
But forget about actual numbers. They're meaningless. What you should really be looking at is purchasing power. How many hours do you have to work to pay for dinner? O
Re:well yeah (Score:5, Informative)
A union allows workers to bargain with employers collectively. Corporations act collectively (RIAA, MPAA, other industry associations), why shouldn't workers?
The reason Chinese workers are cheaper than American workers is because the cost of living is cheaper there. When I was in Thailand in the USAF in 1974 you could take a bus anywhere in the country for a nickle, buy a tailored silk shirt for $10, feed four people in a restaraunt for a dollar. I paid thirty dollars a month to rent my bungalow (when I got back, for comparison, I paid $160 a month for a shotgun house in the slums and a McDonalds "meal" cost two bucks for one person). Now tell me how you can possibly compete with that?
And here's a little tip: most union workers don't earn $150k/yr. I have a friend who's worked for the postal service for thirty years fixing those big mail boxes, he makes $75k. Were it not for his union he'd probably be making little more than minimum wage.
Unless you're a corporatist or business owner, you're dead wrong about unions. Any working person who is anti-union is stupid, ignorant, or crazy.
Re: (Score:2)
You feel like you're making more than your parents and grand-parents did, because the absolute number is higher. But in terms of purchasing power, you're making much less. Those union workers we like to complain about are actually living the way our grandparents did.
That is complete and utter BS. I am not a good comparison for my parents, but I have a good friend who is. I am one of six children, my friend has eight children. My mother was a nurse, my father was a jack of all trades. My friend is a jack of all trades, his wife is a nurse. My parents had only one car until after my oldest two siblings left for college, my friend and his wife have never had less than two cars. I could go on, but by any metric, my friend with 8 children has greater purchasing power than m
Re: (Score:2)
Except that "wage inflation," whatever you meant by that, has no bearing on the calculation of inflation.
The US calculates inflation by constructing a basket of goods that represents what a typical consumer purchases - e.g., x loaves of bread, y new cars. They then find out how much the basket costs this month rather than last month - e.g., prices for bread went up, so now the basket costs x+1 instead of x.
If you buy the same things you always did, but this month they cost you more, that's inflation. Wage
Re: (Score:2)
So yeah, purchasing power has increased when you focus
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
at one time, when gilded age corporatist assholes employed pinkerton's thugs to kneecap guys just trying to earn enough to feed his children, unions were heroic and noble
Now the corporatist assholes jack up your health insurance co-pays, (or your premium rates, or just plain get rid your your healthcare benefits) raid the company pension plan (if it still exists) for a new condo in Maui, or manipulate the stock price (which is a nice chunk of your 401k) to make a few bucks on the side, or run the company in
Re:dear unions: (Score:5, Informative)
A larger source of the problem was starting in the 80s (Reagan) and again in the 90s (Clinton) import tariffs were dropped to almost nothing in the US with the expectation that we'd make it all back in IP jobs and money: entertainment, software and biotech.
We learned that many countries were quite happy to sell to the US with the reduced tariffs in place, but didn't drop their own, and didn't necessarily give diddly-squat about our IP and its rules.
Tariffs are quite high on sugar and textiles, but for electronics and heavy industry, it's almost non-existent.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
in today's day and age, a union is nothing more than a lottery ticket for lazy assholes to earn way way more than middle class salaries, for doing far less, and be accountable and responsible for nothing
Nice rant. Got anything like, you know, facts to back this up? Hey! Here's some. There has been a shift away from living wage manufacturing jobs towards lower paying service jobs for decades. The main reason? Off-shoring of those manufacturing jobs. Why go off-shore when you have the most productive workers in the world (in output per dollar spent)? Easy - corporate welfare. Ever since the Reagan years, there have been very generous tax breaks for companies who ship their manufactur
Re: (Score:2)
"Informative"? I believe this is reactionary hyperbole.
I don't believe that the budget can be balanced by reducing State workers' benefits.
"Benefits will be continue reduced until morale/work product/level of caring improves."
And reducing the benefits and/or number of employees is hardly going to help get those remaining "to do boo about" parole violations, is it?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And reducing the benefits and/or number of employees is hardly going to help get those remaining "to do boo about" parole violations, is it?
The situation is complicated, but it is the sheer number of employees and the level of benefits that comprise a bulk of the budget problem. Remember, when a politician says "we've cut to the bone" the translation is "we've reduced next year's increases a bit". The illegal aliens don't help, but, well, I'm the moral equivalent to three Hitlers plus two Stalins times a Charles Manson for even daring to mention it, right?
They already managed to get a 2/3 vote last year and pass the largest state tax increase i
Re:Won't somebody think of the children! (Score:5, Informative)
If you are wondering why the prisons in California are so full, it's because a few years ago we passed a "three strikes you're out" law, which means repeat offenders get life imprisonment. So they are trying creative stuff like this. Guess it's not working.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Your uncle is part of the problem. The prisons are not underfunded. The prisons are waste too much money.
Remember, it costs California $47,000 per-inmate annually, which is 50 percent higher than the national average. There are approximately 170,000 people in California prisons. That works out to almost 10% of the budget. If the cost were more in line with the rest of the nation, it would save over $2 billion.
Ask your uncle why it costs a third more to house an inmate in California. I guarantee you he won'
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Texas may not be AS BAD as California - but they are working on it. A prisoner convinced the entire prison system that he was paralyzed, couldn't walk, and rolled around the prison in a wheelchair for quite a long time. Then, he convinced the prison officials that he needed some kind of medical attention, which required he be sent to a more central location, with better facilities. Somewhere between here and there, he pulled a weapon, relieved his two guards of THEIR weapons, and took off. Wasn't paraly
I disagree (Score:5, Insightful)
I have to disagree with the summery because I don't see it as
both a lesson in the pitfalls of technology management and a massive exercise in largely useless spending.
It served the purpose of making the voters think something was being done which is all that is important in US politics.
Re:I disagree (Score:4, Funny)
I have to disagree with the summery because I don't see it as
I disagree with the summery too. It's wintry, or maybe autumny. Sometimes springy.
Some problems are pretty isolated to just America. (Score:2, Informative)
I see Americans do this a lot. They take a problem that's common throughout the American political system, and try to play down its negativity by suggesting it's a problem that's common elsewhere.
In reality, that's just not the case. In South Korea, Japan, Scandinavia and throughout Europe, the government actually works for the people. Then again, they don't have two shitty parties, but numerous smaller parties who have to work together, and who will quickly be replaced if they deliver only bullshit promise
GPS Is New! (Score:2)
“We have stated several times that GPS is an evolving science, where technology and best practices continue to be fluid,” Hinkle said by e-mail. “This is a new policy, and as CDCR leads the nation in
Now their ineptitude makes sense... I didn't realize that GPS was still an evolving standard with constantly changing technology. Maybe these guys need to hire some devs from Twitter/FaceBook/etc ?
Re: (Score:2)
-1 Flamebait on the summary (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not useless spending, they just aren't utilizing it properly. The idea is a good one, but just like regulations, it's only useless if it isn't properly enforced.
Re: (Score:2)
It's not useless spending, they just aren't utilizing it properly.
It is useless spending because almost everywhere you go, parole officers (like probation officers, public defenders, prison guards, and social workers) are already vastly overworked.
Adding GPS tracking into the mix just created an information flood without any additional resources to deal with the infractions.
The idea is a good one, but just like regulations, it's only useless if it isn't properly enforced.
The State isn't willing to hire enough warm bodies to do anything more than a best-effort enforcement.
Of course, California's budget is fscked, so I don't see how they could get the money for new staff
Re: (Score:2)
It is useless spending because almost everywhere you go, parole officers (like probation officers, public defenders, prison guards, and social workers) are already vastly overworked.
Adding GPS tracking into the mix just created an information flood without any additional resources to deal with the infractions.
That is a result of the environment, and not indicative of a bad idea.
The State isn't willing to hire enough warm bodies to do anything more than a best-effort enforcement.
Of course, California's budget is fscked, so I don't see how they could get the money for new staff.
Agreed :(
A modest proposal (Score:4, Funny)
Clearly, RIAA should track these parolees - and fine them $ 150,000 for every time they remove a bracelet or run out of battery power.
That would save the State of California $ 60 million per year it doesn't currently have.
Re:A modest proposal (Score:5, Funny)
The RIAA needs an incentive, so give the bracelets wireless internet and have them download music whenever the perolee goes somewhere restricted. He won't know what hit him.
Need moar expensive, custom software! (Score:2, Insightful)
Panopticon Failure (Score:2)
Badly managed, yes. But... (Score:2)
Unfortunately, the technology, as California implemented it, didn’t work. The case of convicted sex offender Leonard Scroggins shows the system’s problem. Scroggins cut the tracking device off his ankle and allegedly tried to rob or kidnap several women and girls over a two-day period. The device sounded an alarm and parole officers pushed through the paperwork for an arrest warrant, but the process took nearly 24 hours. Even then, police would only learn of the warrant if they picked up Scroggins for some other reason and then checked the appropriate database.
It seems clear to me that an alert from such a device constitutes probably cause for the issuance of a warrant for the arrest of the offender. The tecnology exists to have that happen in a span of minutes, requiring only a judge's (electronic) signature before being communicated to law enforcement who, presumably, would rate this type of case with a fairly high priority. Indeed, the case could be made for automatically generating the warran
Re:Badly managed, yes. But... (Score:5, Insightful)
These are parolees, you don't need probable cause. All you have to do is show up whenever there's an alert. If you can't show up whenever there's an alert you need to reassess your priorities.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Problem lies between monitor and chair (Score:4, Insightful)
I read the article and come to a different conclusion. I believe the problem isn't in the technology, because from what I read it mostly worked. It mentioned some false alarms, but nobody hurts because of a false alarm. The problem here lies in the ineptitude of the people using the system.
Let's say we developed a system that detected earthquakes 1 minute before they went off, but 90% of the time it would be a false alarm. Then people proceed to ignore the alarm because it's usually wrong. Now when a real earthquake occurs, those who ignore the alarm blame it on bad technology.
I say no, this is the fault of the reaction, not the technology itself.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
A broken clock is right twice a day, so there is no need to repair it?
High Risk Parolees? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Trust, but verify
Re:High Risk Parolees? (Score:4, Informative)
Google "California prison overcrowding".
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/14/california-prison-overcro_0_n_611281.html [huffingtonpost.com]
-molo
Re: (Score:2)
If so, then why are you giving them parole in the first place?
Because CA is under a court order to release 40-50K prisoners, although the Supreme Court might modify it when they get around to hearing it.
Given that CA already doesn't jail non-violent drug offenders, I find it hard to believe that they can release 1/4 of the prisoners without releasing some seriously violent criminals. Parole, even with fancy GPS monitoring, costs a small fraction of incarceration and might actually work if implemented right.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/us/10prison.html [nytimes.com]
http://www. [mercurynews.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Furthermore, what are rapists/pedophiles/molesters/gang members doing on the streets after being arrested for a crime?
These are the kinds of people you lock up and throw away the key, nevermind parole. Parole is for relatively minor offenses, near the end of their term.
Meanwhile, my uncle just got out of prison: he was in San Quintin for 8 years. Why? He violated a restraining order (he had not even been made aware of) against him by his ex-wife. She got the order, then invited him over to see his daughter
Re: (Score:2)
I call BS on your story. A judge wouldn't order somebody jailed for 8 years for violating a restraining order that they had never been notified of. I'm guessing, as usual with these stories on Slashdot, there's more to what actually landed the guy in jail than you are saying. Otherwise it would have required any two-bit lawyer and a finding of fact that he had never been notified of the restraining order.
My guess - he pled guilty to violating a restraining order to get charges dismissed for the other stuf
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, there were other charges which he plea bargained away: assault. If I recall the picnic properly, she attacked him with a frying pan, backed him against a fence, and he hit her. She called the cops. This led to her deciding to not press charges until later, and then getting the restraining order...
As I understand things, this is fairly typical. I don't care if you're gotten for aggravated assault, personally: 8 years for a first-time offense is insane, short of life-impacting grievous harm to another i
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe it's because half of the four things you cite aren't crimes and thus shouldn't bear on the question of whether someone who has been arrested for a crime, any crime, should be denied bail or parole.
Rapists and molesters have harmed someone and broken a law (presumably) and should go to jail for a long time.
Pedophiles are people that think inappropriate dirty thoughts about little k
Re:High Risk Parolees? (Score:5, Insightful)
You offer the guy a deal for parole when he first gets in the system. Seems like an easy logical choice right? Then when he violates it (an incredibly common affair), you get to shove him in jail for the parole violation with no trial, no plea, no nothing. IANAL, but this is what a practicing lawyer in CA has told me. It's more than slightly ridiculous, but that's what happens when you're hamstrung by a retarded 3 strikes law among other things.
(1) The guy doesn't have to take parole if he doesn't want to. Parole is voluntary.
(2) You would think that he could abide the terms of parole given that the State could lawfully be holding him in jail. What is the thought process: "They are letting me out of my passed sentence on the condition that I don't drink and drive but I think I'll pound a few beers and drive home anyway"?
(3) 3 strikes is retarded in implementation but not in concept. People thrice convicted of bona-fide violent crimes (assault, robbery, rape) should get 25-life. People thrice convicted of shoplifting should get a weekend in jail and a vocational class. The idea that we cannot distinguish between those obviously different crimes is absurd.
Hence people like me are in the ridiculous position of having to defend the concept of 3S while concurrently explaining that shoplifting and other minor crimes were never part of our plan. People that repeatedly violate the fundamental human rights of others (to wit, the rights not to be robbed, raped or beaten) need to be imprisoned.
Blame the taxpayer (Score:3, Interesting)
This project probably got through on some scaremongering bill but then when the non-vote winning budget was needed, the politicians knew that the voter does not want to spend any money ever, and voted against it.
Police costs a LOT of money. Crime costs even more but no politician has to raise taxes to fund crime.
Take the "three-strikes" law. Interesting idea, but did anyone in favor of it ALSO vote to increase the number of jails by about a 1000%? Because ALL those rotating door criminals that were out in a couple of months are now in for life. Even if you lock them four to a cell and reduce their life expectancy that way, you still are talking about housing an awful lot of people for a bloody long time. And a life-sentence looses its meaning if they are paroled after 6 months because the need the space.
And if you are against the "three-strikes" system? Then what is your solution and how are you going to pay for it? Prevention? Lots of cops and social workers. Re-education? lots of parole officers. Treating those with mental problems before they come to harm? Very expensive mental hospitals (which were cut and now jails fullfill their role).
This project most likely was started as a way to aid parole officers in their job. Then it became a way to cut costs instead and now you got fewer parole officers with more duties and ever more prisoners to track.
But hey, you got a tax cut... oh wait no. that 300 dollars has seen been added to your bills multiple times.
Oh well. That is what you get for giving everyone the vote. You turn the running of the country into Idols.
Another side to this... (Score:2)
If violations are so common with GPS-tagged parolees and convicts, maybe they should reconsider releasing them, eh? Certainly if it's too expensive to *actually* track them down and deal with the violations.
I would have thought that one reason for the program was to save money by releasing low-risk, compliant convicts. If they're NOT low-risk or compliant, then back to prison they can go.
Did someone forget about maintence? (Score:2)
If you're gonna create a system, you need make plan for maintenance of said system (and fund it).. in this case it's enough eyeballs to watch alerts.. but also a policy of how to deal with false alerts (and rectify the system to try and minimize false positives.. which probably will vary by individual parolee).
This is why KISS works.. tbh.. why don't we just outsource monitoring these alerts to some nation that might take this job seriously.. (like.. India?)
You see this shit in IT all the time. (Score:3, Interesting)
You see this kind of shit in IT all the time: $boss gives you $new_shiny but does not give you the human resources to manage said $new_shiny, resulting in $new_shiny not being effectively used. Result: $boss jumps on your ass for not utilizing $new_shiny, even though you didn't ask for it (or asked for it with the necessary addition of more humans).
Only difference in this case is that it's cops not IT people.
I suspect that information inundation has something to do with it, too: how many parolees are there who are violating their parole? If it's more than a scant few, chances are they don't have the force numbers to pay attention to the alerts, never mind actually act on them.
They screwed themselves by publicizing this (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, I have talked to people who actually manage these programs on the commercial side as part of an informational exchange for similar sorts of technology situations (we track fleet vehicles via GPS and cellular, they track people). There are a lot of different reasons to have these programs, including:
Making sure that the subject does not go to certain places or stays in certain places (of course)
but also:
Having a historical record of the whereabouts of the subject
Determining if the subject enters t
Tin foil Anklets!!! (Score:2)
What happens to a GPS device if you wrap aluminum foil around it? Does the metal make a Faraday Cage? What about mesh? For that matter, how about pants with metal mesh integrated into them?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The server will send an alert that it can't communicate with the unit, and (theoretically, apparently not in CA) someone will be contacting that person to check it out.
Say it ain't so... (Score:2)
"...a massive exercise in largely useless spending."
Useless spending? By the government?
**GASP**
Hrm. (Score:2)
I haven't read TFA. Or any comments. I'm not really sure if I will. And I'm late to the party, so the mods won't see this - bummer.
But: I have it on good authority (as in: I personally service both the wearable and monitoring devices) that at least one county in Ohio never did care about these things to the extent that they claimed to.
People are issued "tracking bracelets" that go around their ankles in cases of house arrest and such. But there's no centralized monitoring, at all: The only way that a
Re:Just dial it in... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Humans are squishy. You can blow off your hand with a fire cracker. A ring of firecrackers with a metal exterior around your neck would probably blow off your head and do no damage to anyone else.
Re: (Score:2)
I considered something like this after my car stereo was stolen the second time.
I thought it might be fun to have the real stereo disguised, and a modified (explosive) pullout stereo in plain view. The theory was that a transmitter could exist in the car, and a receiver/battery/detonator would be installed in the modified pullout stereo. When the stereo exceeded the transmitter range, detonation.
Wasn't there an explosive collar in an Governator movie? They breach the perimeter and it starts flashing and
Re: (Score:2)
Alas, it is illegal to set traps for thieves that are deliberately harmful. You could set it up to short the battery through the stereo as it is pulled out to render it permanently non-functional, but explosives would probably out of bounds unless you used just enough to pop an IC off. Even razorblades in the wiring harness is a no-no.
On the other hand, if you can show that you've always been crappy with wiring, "accidentally" mis-wiring so that the thief also gets directly connected to the battery, that
Re: (Score:2)
Given that my employer has made billions of dollars on extremely successful and reliable GPS devices, I don't think the problem is GPS. I think your problem is the implementation of the GPS receiver (iPhones are known to have crap GPS receivers) and poor software. There's a reason why GPS and WAAS are able to land airplanes, its because they are extremely accurate systems. As with all hardware and software, there's good stuff and bad stuff. The question is, which is in the ankle bracelets?