More than 600 convicted offenders in the District of Columbia arebeing tracked by federal authorities using GPS satellite technology, more people per capita than any other state or city, officials said.
The technology has been used to solve several violent crimes in the area, including the arrest of a convicted robber for sexually assaulting a teenage girl and kidnapping another in February, officials said.
Those being tracked with bracelets have been released from prison on parole or probation. GPS technology allows the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency to track them wherever they go.
Each day, law enforcement agencies in the city plug the dates, time and place of major crimes into a computer system and cross-reference them with the movements of known offenders as provided by GPS tracking.
The ankle bracelets are a condition of release for some convicted criminals, and authorities expect to expand its use to 800 people by the end of the year, said agency spokesman Leonard Sipes.
There are numerous stories of offenders who are being peer-pressured into committing another crime who simply pull up their pants leg to reveal the ankle bracelet, and usually the friends understand, Sipes said.
“It’s a heck of an incentive for an individual to do what is in their best interest, the best interest of their families and the best interest of their community,” he said.
Mapping technology allows COSTA to create images of locations and offender movements. Last month, authorities couldn’t figure out why one sexual offender was hanging out every day at a Metro stop until they placed a Google Earth overlay on the site that revealed he was going to a children’s playground. Authorities remotely searched the offender’s computer and found he was visiting child pornography Web sites, Sipes said.
In domestic violence cases, authorities can warn the victim if the offender enters his or her neighborhood and work to immediately obtain an arrest warrant, Sipes said.
The satellite tracking is also used to make sure offenders meet required appointments, he said. If the offender misses an appointment, CSOSA can limit his movement from a certain part of town to a 12-block area from the person’s house.
