 GPS monitoring has become one of many procedures that police use with both high and low risk offenders. However, as of late there have been some questions raised on just how reliable this technology may be. The reliability of the satellites is not in question, but rather the reliability of those people who are required to analyze the data.
California is a state that has tracked sex offenders with these GPS devices since 2006. Of the 7000 registered criminals, 2200 are classified as active (high-risk ) and 4,800 are passive (low risk). In one case, parole agents ignored 276 reports of a loss of signal from one of the passive monitoring systems, according to the report. Parole agents should have investigated the cause of this abnormality and documented their findings in the parole file.
There are some instances where the GPS signal could be compromised: interference from buildings, malicious tampering from the person being tracked, or by jamming the GPS transmission with cell and GPS jammers. This interference would be obvious to those monitoring the tracking service, and should have been dealt with by immediately sending out a patrol car to investigate.
GPS tracking solutions such as the Entourage systems provide many advantages for personal or asset tracking. They offer the ability to set perimeter fences, which instantly send out an alert to the party monitoring the data. As well, they provide real-time location updates on the web which you can log in and view from any computer with internet access. |
