MELVILLE, N.Y. – A New York county will embark on a program this summer that will use global positioning system technology to more closely monitor a wide range of chronic abusers, including repeat DWI offenders.
Suffolk County plans to place GPS ankle bracelets on convicted sex offenders, repeat DWI offenders, drug users and dealers, and the perpetrators of spousal abuse. The devices will provide monitoring 24 hours a day, giving probation officers minute-by-minute reports of an offender’s exact location.
The county’s probation department will start with 25 offenders in June and expand to 100 by the end of the year as part of a pilot program that will be re-evaluated in December. The county plans to use about 50 percent of the devices on sexual predators with the rest to be divided among the other three groups of offenders, according to probation department director John Desmond.
“These are the chronic types of offenders that maybe with this technology we could save some money and a lot of grief,” said county legislator Cameron Alden.
Suffolk County, one of a growing number of jurisdictions nationwide using GPS to track sex offenders, is among the first to use the high-tech devices on DWI offenders.
“It certainly is an innovative use of the product,” said Steve Chapin, chief executive officer of Pro Tech, which is supplying Suffolk and 43 states with the devices. “The target population has been sex offenders.”
Where conventional electronic ankle bracelets show only when someone has left his house, GPS devices coupled with appropriate programming can tell when a sex offender is near a school, when a DWI offender is in a speeding car, or when a husband is approaching a wife who has an order of protection against him.
Laura Ahearn of Parents for Megan’s Law praised the use of GPS but said offenders must be physically monitored, too.
“The use of GPS alone is not going to eliminate child sexual abuse,” she said.
Since GPS devices cannot tell when an offender has a child in his home, Suffolk County probation officials said they will make unannounced home visits as well.
The pilot program will cost roughly $300,000 to set up and $10 a day per offender.
Desmond said Suffolk County will request GPS monitoring as part of probation agreements.
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