GPS Tracking ROI

My headline is the same slug than headed an article in a recent Seattle Time by Jennifer Sullivan (some excerpts and comments follow)  In my limited knowledge of how dead tree newspapers work I believe another anonymous person gets the credit for the “Teaser” head, but either way, it worked.  I jumped on the article because I was going to get some solid information about my one of my favorite subjects … how to separate rumor from fact and actually calculate an ROI (Return On Investment) for these devices and the “human-powered” system that must accompany them to make a GPS offended monitoring program work.  Alas, there’s a lot more simplistic thechno-speak about how the particular system chosen by the Washington State Department Of Corrections (DOC) works than cost/benefit data … but don’t get my wrong, Jennifer, there are some nuggets of great information here.

Are GPS devices for sex offenders worth it?

By Jennifer Sullivan  Seattle Times staff reporter

State sex offenders are tethered to GPS tracking devices.

More than 20 of the state’s most violent sex offenders are tethered to tracking devices that document their locations within a half-block.

The devices are at the heart of Gov. Christine Gregoire’s promise to keep people safe from sex predators. On Wednesday, the governor asked the state Legislature for $8.2 million to better monitor sex offenders.

Nearly $1 million would go toward purchasing the tracking sets for the Department of Corrections (DOC); About $5 million would pay for in-person visits of sex offenders by law enforcement.

But community corrections officers doubt whether the $1,500 devices — ankle bracelets, locator boxes designed to be strapped on people’s belts and charging units — would ensure that sex offenders are abiding by the terms of their parole. In the two months that a dozen trackers have been used in Seattle, one offender has thrown the device away and another let the battery die — making the devices useless. Both offenders were arrested and held on suspicion of violations….

Let’s cut through a little of the niceties here and attempt to make some sense of what “success’ or “failure” would be.  I have come across a fantastic study on recidivism here, which validates we all basically “know” … people commit sexual crimes of violence and predation at an alarmingly high rate and arresting, trying, incarcerating, treating and releasing these individuals on parole has a relatively poor success rate … over time, nearly 50% of some categories of violent offenders “re-commit”.  Don’t know what your criteria are, but for me, a program that offers perhaps a 50% success rate is “broken’ and GPS tracking … or any other innovative technique doesn’t have to be all that good to be a lot better.

A day or so ago I posted a report that indicated a fantastically success rate for one state-sponsored program (New Jersey) that has so far posted a better than 99% rate in one, admittedly small (255 offenders) sample.  The Washington State sample written about here is much tinier … and the article starts off from the git-go displaying the attitude of the “testers” that might essentially doom it too failure … out of two dozen units, 2 have been rendered useless in two months.

Of course, at least one parolee has been caught in a significant violation of his terms of parole and re-arrested before he committed another sex offense 9waht’s the dollar value of a woman not being raped or a little girl not fondled and scarred for life?) … at very little law enforcement cost … officers were alerted to the problem and directed to the offender to make a pickup … if police work was always like that everyone would want to be a cop.

… Theo Lewis, DOC community-corrections supervisor in King County’s special-assault unit, said the agency doesn’t have the staffing to constantly monitor offenders’ whereabouts. Instead, officers check GPS data about once a day to determine where offenders have been in the past 24 hours.

“We’re using it as much as we can,” Lewis said. “Those people who want to disappear will take the [locator] box and throw it in the garbage can.” …

… But, Lewis said, the majority of the offenders who have been placed on GPS supervision abide by the rules. He said many offenders see the devices as a way to prove they were abiding by the rules of their prison release. (editors note … told ya so … not everyone who is being GPS monitored doesn’t like it … beats the hell out of sitting in jail) …

… The DOC tracking program was limited in use and lacked funding until this summer, when (Governor)Gregoire pushed for changes after 12-year-old Zina Linnik, of Tacoma, was abducted and killed allegedly at the hands of a convicted sex offender.

Well, of course it’s true that an offender can throw his or her tracker into the garbage can.  It’s also true he or she can report to a police station and ask to be taken back to jail … because that’s the most likely outcome.  What concerns me more in Supervisor Lewis’s statement is the fact that the DOC is programming this innovative potential monitoring program to fail.

I’ve said it once … or a thousand times … and I’ll say it again … implementing any form off GPS tracking without making resources available to monitor the results is a total waste of time.  Implementing such a system without the “buy in” of the employees who will be expected to use it is equally ineffective.

Properly done a system like this … ideally with low-priced non-parole-office monitor personnel ‘watching the screen” and then calling the professionals when need will not only save money but allow much better supervision with less work, rather than more, by existing professional assets.

The news from Washington state is certainly not all bad.  I just hope, instead of parroting the negative comments from employees who have had the program forced on them, the Times and other media sources will look a little farther and report both sides of the story.  If your state is not jumping into GPS monitoring of parolees … especially sexual predator parolees, you have got yo ask yourself why and more importantly, ask your elected leadership why not?

Properly implemented programs using GPS tracking can significantly reduce recidivism of sexual offenders and they can do it better, faster and cheaper.  Don’t let the issue of money be an excuse … done right it costs less … and besides, what is a child’s safety actually worth?