CA- CDCR Places Entire Sex Offender Parolee Population on GPS Monitoring

So far no article mentiones whether the GPS is Active -or- Passive? i.e., whether the GPS unit tells where they WERE (Passive) or whether the GPS unit tells where they ARE (Active). The difference being "where they were" is a total waste of money and provides ZERO public safety, "where they are" still a waste of money but provides a SMALL measure of public safety. Of course, neither type will prevent any crime whatsoever, but they sound good and line the pockets of some politican.

1-14-2009 California:

Every sex offender on state parole in California is now being monitored by GPS technology, a major accomplishment that is six months ahead of previous projections, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Secretary Matt Cate announced today.

"This is a significant milestone to protecting public safety by holding these individuals accountable for the actions and their whereabouts," Cate said. "The CDCR is holding true to a commitment it has made to fit every sex offender parolee with a GPS device and monitor them aggressively."

California is the nation's leader in using GPS technology to track sex offenders. Today, a total of 6,622 sex offenders - all active sex offender parolees in the community - are now being monitored by GPS. These offenders are fitted with an ankle bracelet that transmits its location to parole agents, who also visit these individuals on a routine basis.

Due to the diligence and hard work of our entire parole division, CDCR is more than six months ahead of schedule in placing the entire sex offender population on GPS supervision," said Division of Adult Parole's Director, Tom Hoffman. "California is by far the nation's leader when it comes to tracking sex offenders using GPS, and this massive effort will assist us in better monitoring the activities of sex offenders on parole and improving public safety."

CDCR's Division of Adult Parole Operations originally projected having this entire population - in addition to those requiring GPS supervision under Jessica's Law - under GPS monitoring by June 2009 due to workload issues and availability of the GPS devices. However, as a result of a concentrated effort to achieve this goal, that date was greatly surpassed.

Jessica's Law, also known as Proposition 83, was passed overwhelmingly by California voters in 2006. The law required that every paroled sex offender be monitored by GPS, which is a single, yet important, tool in helping California's parole agents supervise sex offenders more closely.

Currently, parole agents monitor sex offenders on an offender to agent caseload of 40 offenders for every one agent while offenders classified as high risk are monitored on a 20 offender to every one agent.

CDCR's parole division is solely responsible for those sex offenders serving a parole term which is approximately 11 percent of the entire sex offender population in California. The remaining sex offender population - some 92,000 sex offenders - are under the jurisdiction of local law enforcement authorities. In addition to sex offenders, CDCR parole agents supervise nearly 125,000 parolees serving an average of three to five year parole term.

CDCR works continuously and aggressively to improve its policies on managing sex offenders and frequently seeks input from the California Sex Offender Management Board (SOMB), which was created in 2006 to advise the Legislature, the Governor and CDCR in developing sound policy and recommendations on sex offender management.

The CDCR also partners with local law enforcement agencies to pilot GPS technology on High Risk Gang Offenders, and are seeing great potential for reducing gang and violent crime throughout the state as well. ..News Source.. by GateHouse News Service