Last week, the state of New Jersey established a permanent program to monitor convicted sex offenders with GPS (global positioning system) technology.
For the past two years, New Jersey has had a pilot program in which 156 “high-risk” sex offenders were tracked with GPS devices. The program was set to expire, but the legislators passed a law, which the governor signed, to make it permanent.
In a previous post, Sexually violent predators, Lovefraud noted that sex offenders who are diagnosed as psychopaths are likely to offend again. One study found that within six years of release from prison, 80% of psychopathic sex offenders committed additional offenses, compared to only 20% of offenders who were not psychopaths.
How tracking works
With the GPS tracking systems, offenders are fitted with waterproof ankle bracelets. They are also supposed to carry a transmitter, which is about the size of a digital pager, to relay their position to the satellites, and on to authorities.
An article in Wired points out that GPS tracking is not flawless. The equipment is not totally criminal-proof—convicts can cut the bracelets off, and the transmitters don’t always work inside buildings like shopping malls. Tampering with the devices, however, can alert authorities such as probation officers that there is a problem.
According to a manufacturer of the tracking devices, they cannot prevent crimes, but they do deter crimes. A study of 75,000 Florida convicts found that both GPS monitoring and house-arrest electronic monitoring made convicts more likely to comply with their restrictions.
GPS and domestic violence
New Jersey is now one of about a dozen states that have implemented GPS tracking for sex offenders. Others include California and Florida. Some states, such as Massachusetts and Washington, have gone even further, passing laws that enable the same technology to track perpetrators of domestic violence.
On its website, the Harvard Law School explained the Massachusetts law, which became effective January 4, 2007: “If a domestic abuser enters a geographic ‘exclusion zone’—a court-determined restricted area, such as the victim’s home or workplace, or a child’s school—the GPS device will immediately alert both the domestic abuse victim and the police.”
According to an article on the technology in Slate, the idea is to notify a woman that her abuser is violating a restraining order and buy her crucial time so she can get away.
Tracking and civil rights
In 1996, President Bill Clinton signed Megan’s Law, which requires states to register individuals convicted of sex crimes and make information about sex offenders available to the public. Many states post information about sex offenders on the Internet, although they set their own criteria about what information is published.
Constitutional challenges have been mounted against the laws in several state and federal courts. So far, the laws have withstood all challenges. A white paper by Stop Child Predators argues that GPS tracking will also be found constitutional if challenged because the programs are designed not to further punish the offenders, but to protect the public.
Use all the technology
Lovefraud is in favor of using all available technology to stop sex offenders and batterers. In fact, we hope that even more technology will be used to keep tabs on all kinds of predators.
For example, law enforcement authorities in all 50 states demanded that MySpace cross-check its users with lists of convicted sex offenders. MySpace turned over the names of 7,000 sex offenders who had profiles on the social networking site frequented by children and teenagers. All of the profiles were deleted.
MySpace found 141 convicted sex offenders from New Jersey, and they had logged on to the site a total of 34,000 times.
We need to be proactive
The basic concept that society needs to understand is that predators—call them psychopaths or sociopaths—do not follow the rules. Laws and court orders mean nothing to them. Therefore, we need to be proactive in identifying these people and preventing them from causing harm. The best tool for doing that is information.
Let’s identify and post information about all of these predators on the Internet. When warranted, let’s make them wear GPS tracking devices.
A restraining order is nothing but a piece of paper. But a restraining order enforced by GPS tracking—well, that just may give a domestic violence victim a few minutes of warning and prevent a murder.
I am in favor of tacking ALL preditors regardless of thier score on the PCL-R. Look at the stats above. 20% of those not labelled “psychopaths” reoffended. Remember, PCL-R scores change over time. We don’t know what the scores would now be for that 20%. Perhaps they were indeed psychopaths who were missed on the first screening.
From a victim’s perspective, practically speaking, ALL predators are psychopaths-potentially very dangerous!!
Ok I really need some advice here!!! The exsitance of sociopaths is all a newsflash to me. My boyfriend and I met on an internet dating site. We were both first time user, so he tells me, and joke a lot about meeting on the internet. We have been commited to eachother for 6 months and travel back and forth to see eachother as much as possible. We are both in the creative field and consult eachother on projects as well as talk about creating projects together. We talk about our future together and project that in 1 year one of us will move to be with the other.
He is a painter and his work is very interesting, some may say strange, others may say disturbing, others spiritual. A lot of his work involve woman and infants, a lot of womb like images, blood, pain, redemption, suffering, aswell as some that are bright like a woman and man kissing ect. I respect his art and have never read to far into what may frighten others. Simply viewed as his expression.
He is extremely passionate, as am I. We appreciate a lot of the same things and discuss our passion for life ect and our excitement for the future together includingt haveing a child some day. oh he is 35 never married and no children. I am 27, divorsed, 2 4 year old boys.
Our sex life is exciteing and satistfying. We role play like animals and can be agressive with eachother. he is very sensual and likes to smell me all over my body telling me how he loves my natural smell.
Sometimes, aside from sex, he groans like an animal. I have always found it funny not alarming. He loves animals and is very attentive to his own cats and any other animals that we pass.
ok…so whats wrong?
We returned from a vacation together and watched a movie that he has been telling me he wants me to see because it is really well done, it is called perfume. We smoked a joint and then put on the movie.
This movie is about an orphan boy in 18th century paris who has a freakish sense of smell and he finds a smell that is intoxicating to him. he follows the smell which leads him to a girl who he winds up accidently killing because he was trying to keep her from screeming when he snuck up on her. He is devistated that he killed her but stys with her body and continues to passionatly smell her. His whole life he yearns for her smell and figures the only way to recreate it is to concoct a perfume from the extraction of 12 womans scents who he hunts,kills, and freakishly exctracts liquids from their hair, skin ect. At the end he gets caught but at his scheduled hanging he is able to intoxicate the town and officials with the perfume riding him of his actions as if he was a God of some sort.
Durring the movie I was really disturbed. I expressed that I was freaked out on several occassions. He then jumped on top of me and began to lightly choke me…..I was fighting him back yelling “are you going to kill me, please don’t kill me” when he got off he was upset at me for even thinking that he would really hurt me, saying “I lost” The truth is I was really scared. I told him right then that I was very upset with what he doid and that I hate anyone to put their hands on my neck!!! He looked at me weird…..a few minutes later he did it again!!!! Holy shit I thought…he is really sick and this movie is triggering something inside of him to act this out. I yelled again and felt very unsafe….he was very weird, like someone I didn’t know. I pleaded to turned the movie off but he would not. he even rewinded parts he thought I missed.
After the movie ended the very erie classical sound track continued to play and he got on top of me and started to have sex, very animalistic, smelling ,me all over, looking at me weird. I really thought he was going to kill me. I played as if I was not scared so he wouldn’t get more into it. It ended and I lay awake all night fearing he was crazy!!!
The next morning I flew home, he told me he was just messing around with me trying to scare me and didn’t realize how serious I was about being scared and not likeing to be choked. he assured me there was nothing similar between him and the character in the movie.
since then I am scared he has something inside him that is not normal. I cant get past it. I discuss it with him every day since. He tells me he is so sorry and he has nothing but pure love for me but something doesn’t sit right with me. He is pleaing for me not to throw our relationship away over this, he is very emotional as am I. I love this man like I have never loved before but I need to know if he is crazy!!!!!
This is driving me crazy!!!!!!!!! HELP!!!!!!
Sylvia123,
If a relationship makes you uncomfortable, get out. Always trust your instincts.
Donna
silvia123:
what are you waiting for? Him to actually kill you first?
A. He doesn’t care about your feelings, after seeing you so upset by the movie, not only didn’t respect you enough to turn it off, BUT replayed some of it again. It’s called torture.
B. Does his animalistic behavor sound normal to you? Obvioulsy not.
C. Realize your lucky stars because it is long distance and never speak to him again.
The post above is trying to sell GPS tracking technology to bosses to keep track of their staff….7 years ago when I was retiring, there had been talk about nurses and other patient care employees wearing GPS tracking devices so we could be tracked within the hospital…Personally since I was always where I was supposed to be I thought it was a great idea.
The problem is unless the device can be LOCKED on to the ex convict’s leg so that s/he CANNOT remove it without destroying it (which would sound an IMMEDIATE alarm) I think most convicts would do like my son did with the early telephone attached monitors and he just cut the cords that held it to his leg, and jumped bail. I know this has been improved since then by a long shot though, so it would be possible for a criminal to be released with a NON-REMOVEABLE GPS device so that he could work and support his family and be tracked 100% of the time. The COST would be much less than keeping him in prison where he is not able to contribute to the upkeep of himself or his family.
The cost of these devices I would think would be much much MUCH less than hiring guards and building prison cells.
People let out on parole after a period of time in prison could be GPS monitored for life if necessary.
I am highly in favor of technology being used to control criminals.
Maybe we could ‘learn’ from some of the old sci-fi films and implant a tracker in the skulls of criminals for instance. One that could not be removed. I think that this would be a huge leap forward in keeping tabs on child molesters.
Maybe we should all have a ‘chip’ in our heads!
Sylvia,
it sounds like he really gets excited by your emotions of fear. This will happen again. The first time was a test.
The other things you mentioned, in which you get along very well, could be that he is just mirroring you. When spaths are looking for a victim to suck on their emotions, they will behave in whatever way will make you attach to them the most. That way, when they start acting weird, you are less likely to leave them because you feel so attached to them.
I’ve never heard of a spath getting so excited by smell. But spaths are like empty vessels and they often will observe a person or a film that strikes them somehow and they will try to re-enact what they observe. It’s possible that he saw this movie long before you met him and he has been trying to “be” that character ever since. There is nothing real about a spath, so they can take on a variety of personas.
Candy,
Maybe we should all have a ’chip’ in our heads!
LOLOL…better than on our shoulders!
Hey, Sky, “Sylvia” hasn’t been around in a long time, look at the date! 2007! LOL
My post recently was to alert bloggers that there was a SALES POST here…Donna Removed the salesman’s post which was trying to sell stuff, but she left my post. LOL HE was the one who brought the thread by up, and when I read his post and linked to his Sales web site, I notified Donna, and then posted to alert the bloggers to ignore him.
That is a kind of interesting thread though.
LOL! thanks Oxy for pointing that out.
I wonder what ever happened to Sylvia – hope she’s ok.