GPS Tracking and Recidivism — Saving Money and Children
What if you had a business practice that had only about a 50% success rate and I offered you a service that would increase your yield to over 99% while reducing your annual costs by a factor of say, 100? You would probably at least read further to see if I had something real in mind or if I had been smoking some prohibited substance, yes?
And what if I told you that you were already engaged in that 50% yield business even if you didn’t want to be? Surprised, perhaps?
Well, you are in that business and so am I, the convicting and ‘warehousing” of criminals … especially the egregious form categorized as sex offenders.
Don’t worry, you don’t have to take my word for the wildly optimistic performance claims though, read this excerpt:
TRENTON, N.J. - Electronic tracking bracelets worn by high-risk sex offenders on parole help prevent new assaults, the Parole Board has found.
Of 225 sex offenders monitored by Global Positioning System (GPS) technology, only one has been implicated in a new sex crime, according to a report released Wednesday.
“This monitoring strengthens public safety by tracking the most dangerous convicted sex offenders living in New Jersey communities,” Parole Board Chairman Peter Barnes Jr. said…. or read the whole article … it’s quite illuminating.
Recidivism of sexual predator type offenders has an alarmingly high rate. 50% or more repeat their crimes if paroled. No matter what kind of medication, counseling or other state-funded programs are provided the (almost all) men repeat their crimes again and again. The only real solution we allow in our present day society is to incarcerate the offenders (usually after they have repeated their crime while on parole and thus ruined at least two children’s lives). Warehousing is a horribly expensive solution, running up into the $30,000 and more per year range … hundreds of thousands of dollars per prisoner lifetime. Not to mention the tragedy of being unable to offer any alternative treatment.
But just pause for a moment and think on what the state of New jersey has found … more than proving my frequently expressed contention that GPS tracking for parolees (at the cost of a few hundred per year per offender) saves a fortune in money, saves children who will never know, and saves even the lives of these man who can thus contribute something to society … perhaps even supporting their own families … instead of repeating their crimes again and again.
If your state isn’t into this with both feet it is time to find out why? GPS tracking does not cost, it pays and pays and pays.