A global positioning system tracking device led Madison Police to the arrest of a registered sex offender for a non-sexual crime.
According to anMPDstatement,MPDarrested 66-year-old George Grover Monday afternoon in his home on the 200 block of East Mifflin Street. Grover is under lifetime monitoring and must wear aGPStracking bracelet at all times.
MPDspokesperson Joel DeSpain said the Wisconsin Department of Corrections is in charge of the monitoring of these offenders. TheDOCnotifiedMPD Grover’s bracelet had not moved for about one day, the statement said.
WhenMPDlocated Grover, he had cut off the bracelet because he said it was giving him a rash. Grover was arrested for tampering with theGPStracking device.
Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4, said while there are a fair number of registered sex offenders living in the downtown area, incidents such as this do not occur often.
“These incidents are rare in terms of offenders tampering with bracelets,” Verveer said. “I don’t know of any incidents that I can recall that an individual caused problems.”
While Verveer said the majority of sex offenders do not cause any problems, he also said offenders are on their way to improvement through heavy supervision and rehabilitation, and most do not repeat their crimes.
Verveer added there are not a disproportionate number of sex offenders living in the downtown area.
“Downtown rents are on the high side. These individuals are convicted felons that have a hard time with employment and income for downtown rent,” he said.
Although most apartments in the downtown may be too expensive, Verveer said there are some more affordable efficiency apartments that have sex offenders living in them.
According to theDOC’s sex offender registry, Grover was convicted of first-degree sexual assault of a child in Milwaukee in 1997.
While Grover was no longer under custody or supervision restrictions, he remained under life registration in the sex offender registry as well as lifetime monitoring under theDOC’sGPSsystem.
He has been known to be non-compliant with the registry’s stipulations requiring the reporting of addresses and responding to mail contact.
