Program Uses GPS To Track Sex Offenders 338
43 sex offenders in Pennsylvania's Allegheny County are wearing GPS monitoring devices as part of a pilot program designed to keep track of their movements. If the offender moves into an "exclusion zone," police are called. “Exclusion zones for example [are] schools, daycares, playgrounds, facilities where children congregate for those sex offenders,” John Hudson, a security consultant, said. “We’ve identified in their red zones. If an offender with a device goes into one of the red zones, an exclusion zone, we’ll be notified immediately.”
Re:WTF (Score:5, Informative)
So, what do you suggest we do, keep dangerous sex offenders in prison forever? How is that any less cruel than letting them go free, but keeping them away from situations likely to trigger their disease? It's more expensive, as well.
Re:Wewease the secwet weapon... (Score:4, Informative)
they should just release the gps data to the public so WE can 'keep an eye' on them
Because you're not a law enforcement officer, and when the individual is paroled and reintegrated back to society they deserve just as much privacy protection as you and I.
When you put "'keep an eye' on them" in quotes like that it very strongly implies that you will 'take matters into your own hands' and 'make sure they don't hurt anyone again'. Modern America is no place for paranoid vigilante mob justice.
... i have 2 kids and yes, i should know who they are and if they are preying on my children.
Not all sex offenders predate on children. Some of them are on that list for no other reason than they got drunk and took a leak in a playground. The list is fundamentally broken. In large part because people fail to see sex offenders as being capable of rehabilitation, and feel like they need to 'keep an eye' on them. We have a justice system that includes rehabilitation and parole. If you think people are being released that are a continued threat to your children, your problem is just as much with the parole board as it is with the individual.
I retract my earlier statement (Score:5, Informative)
It appears you are entirely correct. I had always heard that high recidivism was the reason we treated sex offenders differently. Turns out that sex offenders have a lower recidivism rate than any other class of crime except murder. So why do we treat them differently?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_offender#Recidivism_rates [wikipedia.org]
Sex offenders have LOW recidivism rates (Score:5, Informative)
Not being full of bullshit: an easy process.
Re:Sounds good but.. (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.aclufl.org/tuttle/ [aclufl.org]
Re:Sad (Score:5, Informative)
Because child molesters and rapists with amazingly high recidivism rates don't deserve the stigma at all. I'm sure you'd be comfortable hiring one to be a babysitter if that's your view.
False. Try ~5%. That's nothing compared to other crimes. Read this. [wikipedia.org]
Re:Not false. (Score:4, Informative)
I wouldn't say most are innocent, but here's the links you were referring to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_accusation_of_rape [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_allegation_of_child_sexual_abuse [wikipedia.org]
It appears that the false accusation rate with child sex abuse is probably higher than rape, but the numbers they quote is still pretty high (child sex abuse appears to be around 10%, and for rape is 2-8% -- the FBI said 8%). It also varies WIDELY upon the circumstance, location, etc. I can't find figures on other crimes, but if they are lower I'd imagine it's probably because it's harder to pull off as there is not much emotional appeal on the side of the accuser in other crimes (except murder).
With those figures in mind, it doesn't make a big enough impact on the recidivism rate even if you remove the innocents from that figure to claim that recidivism rate is way off. It's still incredibly low, especially by comparison to other crimes.