May 21, 2006
GPS tracking allows authorities to keep closer tabs on offenders
GPS Ankle Bracelet Plugged into a phone outlet in Joe Magno’s ranch home on Rock Avenue in Hudson is a black box.
And strapped around the former high school teacher’s ankle is a rubber and metal bracelet. If he so much as steps outside for fresh air, dunks the bracelet or tries to cut it off, the radio connection between the two is broken, an alarm rings in a field monitoring office staffed 24 hours a day in government center in Boston.
Magno is one of more than 600 people in the state assigned a radio frequency electronic monitoring bracelet. The 65-year-old is awaiting trial on charges he raped a male student at Maynard High School and is back in Middlesex Superior Court tomorrow for a pre-trial conference.
With more bracelets in use nearly every year, are they working? Are more people destined to be fitted with the newest GPS bracelets, now reserved for about 100 sex offenders?
Of 8,300 people who have been strapped with the bracelet, only 8 percent, about 700, have tried to break it off, according to Deputy Commissioner of Probation Paul Lucci. One of them was Hudson wedding photographer Gary Tobin, who cut off his bracelet and fled to New Hampshire while awaiting trial on charges he robbed a pizzeria with a machete in 2004.
The Global Positioning Satellite tracking bracelets, which can track one’s location down to a few feet, is now tethered to more than 100 sex offenders. A similar percentage have escaped from those bracelets, which include a cell phone the offender must wear on his or her belt.
The difference in cost between monitoring equipment for one bracelet, about $3,650 per year for GPS and less for the radio technology, compared with the annual cost of incarceration, an average of $43,025, is enough to keep judges sending people home on house arrest.
There are other advantages besides saving taxpayer dollars to keeping nonviolent criminals on the bracelet, said Boston criminal attorney Peter Elikann.
Jail can be a “pressure cooker of a crime school,” Elikann said.
“When (younger people) go to jail, they hang out with older, more violent criminals,” he said. “They come out worse.”
Radio frequency electronic monitoring bracelets were first introduced in the state in 2001 when they were strapped to 811 men and women.
One year ago, sex offenders were the first to be monitored through GPS technology, which uses Department of Defense satellites to track one’s location and can specify areas where the offender can and cannot travel.
Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey has also proposed a bill that would put people who violate restraining orders on GPS monitoring.
The American Civil Liberties Union sees bracelets as positive if the person would otherwise be heading to prison.
“If it’s being used as an alternative to incarceration, then it’s not a bad thing,” said Carol Rose, executive director of the Massachusetts chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Monitoring can be a problem when the records become open to anyone.
“Technology is moving far faster than the law is keeping up with it,” Rose said. The state needs to review its privacy laws to make sure there are safeguards in how the information is being used, who has access to it, how it is being stored, she said.
Bracelets also give the inmate the chance to gain job skills and re-integrate into society, Lucci said.
Magno, who suffers from numerous health issues, was released on $20,000 cash bail with permission to leave for doctor’s appointments, court dates and meeting with his lawyer.
Conditions of his house arrest include staying away from anyone younger than 16, Maynard High School and its students, and the alleged victim and witnesses.
But no one is monitoring his phone line to see if he is calling teenagers, and Magno’s movements are not being tracked. Should he leave his home with the bracelet on, there would be no way to track with the bracelet where he went.
Local police say they keep a lookout for locals on house arrest, but only investigate if a complaint comes in. The monitoring is done by the probation department.
Despite that, “our officers patrol that area a little bit more if we know someone is on house arrest, or if we see them where they’re not supposed to be,” said Hudson Police Chief Richard Braga.
Most probation officers notify the local police departments when a resident is under house arrest, but there is no requirement to do so.
“If we had any reason to suspect an individual is violating the condition of their release in any way,” Braga said, “then we certainly would visit the home, attempt to make contact and take any action that we would need to.”
By Carolyn Kessel Stewart Metrowest Daily News Staff
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