PALMDALE — Satellite-tracking devices are being strapped
on the ankles of 40 paroled rapists and other high-risk sex
offenders in the Antelope Valley in the first such use of GPS
technology in Los Angeles County.
A little bit bigger than a computer mouse and weighing about
6 ounces, the device beams signals to an orbiting network of
satellites that give state parole agents a computerized record of
a parolee’s movements. If he or she ventures to a school or
playground or leaves a designated area, the device will
transmit a text message alerting his parole agent.
“We believe GPS will save the lives of children,” said state
Sen. George Runner, R-Lancaster, who is pushing a
November ballot measure that would mandate lifetime GPS
tracking for every sex offender leaving prison.
GPS technology is already tracking parolees all across the
United States.
A study in Florida, where GPS use began in 1998, found that
sex offenders wearing the devices were less likely to commit
new crimes or to disappear.
The devices are not a panacea — they will not send a police
officer racing to a school when a sex offender walks up to the
fence — but they are a deterrent, said Peggy Conway, editor
of the Journal of Offender Monitoring.
“There is no anonymity to a crime. They can be put at the scene
of a crime,” Conway said. “They know they will get caught.”
At a cost of $8.45 a day each, the GPS devices were used in a
pilot program tracking high-risk sex offenders in San Diego
County last July, and in October in Orange County.
More than 400 are now in use in parts of California, with a
state law approved last year boosting that to 2,500 over the
next four years.
About 45 of the parolees fitted with the devices so far have
been charged with violating parole for behavior including
being in unauthorized areas such as amusement parks or being
away from home after curfew.
In one case, a parolee was arrested after his GPS device
tracked him to a high school campus and near a women’s
locker room at the University of Redlands.
Overall, Los Angeles County has some 11,400 registered sex
offenders — enough so that a state Web site mapping each
offender’s location with a blue dot shows solid blue stretching
for miles across almost every area of the county.
Of the county’s sex offenders, 391 are parolees recently
released from prison and categorized by parole officials as high
risk because of violence, multiple offenses, multiple victims or
other factors.
Of the 391 high-risk sex-offender parolees, 43 live in the
Antelope Valley. That means the Antelope Valley has less than
4 percent of Los Angeles County’s population, but 11 percent
of its high-risk sex offenders on parole.
Antelope Valley was picked as a pilot area after state officials
agreed in January to stop sending parolees there unless they
had Valley connections predating their imprisonments.
Department of Corrections spokeswoman Elaine Jennings said
she expects GPS use in metropolitan Los Angeles to start later
this year or early next year.
“The Antelope Valley has had a concern about parolees. There
was community involvement and we had good partners,”
Jennings said.
Palmdale Mayor Jim Ledford said the Antelope Valley has
been allowed to become home to too many parolees — nearly
2,000 of all sorts, or 6 percent of the county total.
“We are a dumping ground,” said Ledford. “You get the
headlines at Disneyland, but this is where people live...We’re
fed up.”
The concern about sex offenders is state and nationwide.
California’s parole chief, Jim L’Etoile, either resigned or was
dismissed — officials won’t say which, citing personnel law —
after revelations that paroled sex offenders were placed in
motels and hotels near Disneyland.
The placements violated no laws, but officials moved four
parolees who lived in motels within a half-mile of the
amusement park. The men all wore GPS devices.
In the Nov. 7 election, California voters will vote on a
measure called Jessica’s Law, named for a Florida girl who was
abducted from her home and slain, that would require all
paroled and newly registered sex offenders to wear an
electronic tracking device for life.
The law would also bar them from living any closer than
2,000 feet from schools and parks, meaning many
neighborhoods would be off-limits but also shifting offenders
into other areas.
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