Last week, the state Legislature's budget committee recommended the implementation of innovative satellite technology to track criminals on supervised release for first-degree sexual assault of children.
Using bracelets and watch-like transmitters, convicted deviants would be connected to global positioning Internet systems capable of providing minute-by-minute updates of their whereabouts — notifying law enforcement agencies and parole offices when wanderers stray into "exclusion zones" around schools and playgrounds.
Lawmakers hope it will crack down on those who epitomize, in the politically off-color rhetoric of committee co-chairman Rep. Dean Kaufert, the "sleazebags" of our society. The bill is expected to be debated in legislative chambers next month.
On the surface, the proposal appears to be a commendable, and perhaps even crucial, endeavor. That is, until you look at the price tag.
If GPS tracking became legislative reality, the initiative would cost the Department of Corrections a staggering $477 million over the next 20 years. The technological investment would total $10,100 per perpetrator and require bureaucratic expansion in the form of 17 new probation and parole agents annually. It makes the expenses of incarceration — which costs around $3,000 per inmate — pale in comparison. Amazingly, the committee's only remedy to the proposal's monumental costs is to make the offenders — many of whom barely possess the financial capacity to get back on their feet following prison — responsible for picking up the tab.
The recommendation is quite irresponsible, coming from a committee meant to reflect rational budgetary priorities. While this university has continuously fallen victim to the dismal condition of state funds, lawmakers have remained steadfast in their prioritization of bloating the prison system over, say, public education or other sectors that attempt to provide opportunities for individuals, instead of taking them away.
Aside from being recklessly expensive, the realities of the budget committee's proposal reflect the overly simplistic approach that policymakers tend to take in addressing and combating the complexities of pedophilia. In recent years, front-page headlines documenting horrific child molestation and murder cases have amplified the social panic over sex offenders. This has manifested into emotional politicians drafting simplistic policies in response to single crimes and naming laws after its victims, instead of proposing initiatives based on data-driven policy analysis.
The ongoing myth regarding sexual abuse is that a vast majority of offenders recommit their crimes. The most recent Department of Justice study, in 2003, found that sex offenders have a lower incidence of recidivism than those convicted of non-sex offenses. Re-offense rates vary substantially among different types of offenders, and are related to specific characteristics of the individuals themselves and the type of crimes they commit. Therefore, to group any level of offenders into a single predatory category fails to distinguish the truly dangerous from the rest, while throwing an impediment in the path of rehabilitated individuals merely attempting to move on with their lives.
Moreover, all-encompassing GPS monitoring fails to account for domestic abuse. A tracking device preventing offenders from stepping foot in parks and playground will be ineffective for individuals guilty of abusing the people they live with — a legitimate concern, considering that family members are the perpetrators in anywhere from one-third to one-half of all sexual abuse cases in the U.S.
Rather than focusing on elaborate methods of keeping tabs on former convicts, law enforcement agencies would be better served focusing their time and money on apprehending and convicting dangerous offenders, and keeping them in jail.
It's well known that only a fraction of sexual assaults — particularly ones that victimize children — are actually reported, and too many perpetrators go unpunished. Moreover, if certain offenders, helpless against incurable psychological urges, pose such a threat to society that we need to track their every move, then why release them from prison in the first place? We cannot hope that one's knowledge that he is being electronically monitored will act as a sole deterrent of criminal actions, and replace the physical confines of jail. On the other hand, not all former offenders deserve to endure a permanent electronic prison after their debt to society has been paid.
Unfortunately, civil rights groups have been virtually silent on this issue, fearing the backlash of opposing measures attempting to "get tough" on perverts and pedophiles. But as the budget committee's recommendation serves to put lifelong constraints on every individual fitting into one broad category — which within itself serves to trample on the rights to which everyone, even former sex offenders, are entitled — someone needs to stand up and declare, as Rep. Mark Pocan did while casting the recommendation's lone dissenting vote, that the civil and monetary costs of such an initiative far outweigh the potential benefits.
Adam Lichtenheld ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in political science and African studies.
