CT- False Alarms Common With GPS Monitoring

9-23-2008 Connecticut:

Rapist’s case reveals flaws in using technology to track offenders

Gov. M. Jodi Rell and other Connecticut officials seemed shocked to learn that global positioning system devices used to monitor movements of a released serial rapist and other sex offenders could give faulty readings. But they should not have been.

In recent years, officials and researchers in several states have noted with concern that false alarms – instances in which GPS devices provide incorrect locations for former convicts or lose track of them entirely -- are fairly common.

In some places, law enforcement authorities have asked lawmakers not to mandate widespread GPS monitoring because of the time, money and manpower needed to check out hundreds or thousands of potentially erroneous reports.

A report prepared by the Indiana Department of Correction last year gave GPS monitoring a mixed review. “While GPS monitoring serves as a useful tool for parole agents to know the locations of their particular parolees, some of the drawbacks of being too staff intensive, loss of coverage and faulty alerts may prevent the GPS technology from completing its intended task,” the Indiana report stated.

The study said that widespread GPS use could “inundate local police” with faulty alerts. It did state, however, that the number should drop as technology evolves.

“It remains an imperfect science,” said William Carbone, director of court support services for Connecticut’s Judicial Branch, who has spoken to officials in other states about GPS monitoring issues. “Everyone is recognizing that it’s got some limitations.”

The drawbacks came to light in Connecticut in an incident involving serial rapist David Pollitt, who was released last fall after serving 24 years in prison. When Pollitt went to live with his sister in Southbury, he was fitted with an electronic ankle bracelet that tracks his movements with satellite technology.

In early September, Pollitt was arrested on a probation violation after officials said he had left his sister’s yard for about 15 minutes. Gov. M. Jodi Rell, who had adamantly opposed Pollitt’s release last year, immediately called for his return to prison.

But Pollitt and his sister said he never left the property. One of Pollitt’s lawyers said his ankle unit has been replaced more than five times in 11 months because it repeatedly tracks him in the wrong location. Attorney Ioannis A. Kaloidis also said Pollitt had logged at least 44 false alerts.

Two days after the arrest, state officials withdrew the warrant after the Florida-based company that provides monitoring services for Connecticut acknowledged that Pollitt’s GPS system wasn’t working properly on the day in question.

Pro Tech Monitoring Inc. of Odessa, Fla., monitors about 200 people on probation and 50 people on parole in Connecticut, with the latter group consisting entirely of sex offenders. Pro Tech is a subcontractor for California-based G4S Justice Services Inc., which has a $950,000-a-year contract with the Judicial Branch.

“There is simply no excuse for this malfunction,” Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said in a prepared statement. “An investigation should be done as quickly as possible because tracking dangerous convicted parolees can be a matter of life and death.”

Rell also released a statement. “This incident raises a number of troubling questions: Is the GPS system we are using reliable? Can we be sure this will not happen again?”

Tunnels And Snow

The answer to that question is an unequivocal “no.”

In Arizona, a 2007 legislative study found that in the state’s first year of using GPS monitoring, more than 35,000 false alerts were generated by 140 people wearing monitoring devices. In California, where Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is a champion of the tracking devices, officials have said that something as simple as low batteries on ankle bracelets are among the many factors that can lead to false alarms.

“People expect GPS to have almost a ‘Star Trek’-like technology, that we sort of know in very real time where people are moment to moment,” Suzanne Brown-McBride, chairwoman of the California Sex Offender Management Board, told PBS’s “NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” in January. “What I think the public doesn't understand is that false alarms are common, [sex offenders] dropping off of the map is fairly common.”

In Washington State, a 2003 study by the Department of Corrections found that GPS systems can give faulty readings when offenders are inside steel buildings or tunnels or outside when it’s snowing. In 2006, the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs opposed proposed legislation to expand use of GPS tracking devices, saying that, given the likelihood of false alarms, they did not want the burden of having to check out every report that someone on probation or parole was in the wrong place.

In Minnesota, state correction department officials reacted similarly to a legislative proposal in 2006 that would have expanded GPS monitoring from about 20 sex offenders to more than 300. Ken Merz, director of administrative programs for the state Corrections Department, told Minnesota Public Radio the state would have to hire hundreds of additional agents to monitor sex offenders because the agents would spend so much time responding to false alarms.

In outlying areas, Merz said, “that could mean quite a distance that agent will have to drive to check on something that may very well be a technology problem.”

Better Technology

Still, there are many proponents who say the ability to trace the movements of potentially dangerous people cannot be overstated.

Some two dozen states use some sort of GPS monitoring. In Rhode Island, which is about to launch a GPS monitoring program, a private company has received a federal grant to pioneer a technology that is supposed to be far more accurate in tracking offenders.

But even its many supporters caution that GPS technology should be used selectively, with the focus on offenders deemed most likely to commit new crimes. They also say that a GPS reading alone is usually not sufficient to arrest someone on a parole or probation violation.

In Connecticut, a sweeping criminal justice bill approved this spring provided additional funding for GPS monitoring of offenders. Carbone, the state’s director of court support services, said the advantage of GPS monitoring is that it shows the exact whereabouts of a sex offender or other lawbreaker, while regular electronic monitoring simply indicates whether a person has left his home.

“We view it as one tool in the toolbox,” said Carbone, who added that it must be used in conjunction with other techniques, such as parole and probation officers being in regular contact with former offenders, their employers and family members. “It’s a technology that won’t always be accurate. [We] have to use it with an eye toward limitations in the system.”

He said the limitations are similar to those of cell phones, which use similar satellite technology and don’t work well in some places or under some conditions. Even with the inherent limitations, Carbone said state officials have a right to be upset with the Florida monitoring company in the Pollitt case because of errors made in analyzing the data.

Carbone said the Judicial Branch is doing its own investigation, including reviewing the contracts with the outside vendors. That, he said, would take about three weeks.

In the meantime, defense attorneys in Connecticut call the continued use of GPS monitoring “an absolute abomination,” in the words of Edward J. Gavin, of Meehan, Meehan & Gavin of Bridgeport.

Meehan, the new president of the Connecticut Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, noted the same problems as other states have found – that the GPS systems are often unreliable, and that monitoring sex offenders and others using satellite technology requires an enormous amount of manpower. He said he doubted that the state would be willing to spend the money to provide adequate oversight.

“GPS is only as good as the people who monitor it,” said Meehan. “If you don’t have someone monitoring it, it’s a waste of time and a poor use of resources.”•
..News Source.. by DOUGLAS S. MALAN and PAUL SUSSMAN