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Lawmakers question cost of GPS offender tracking
Gil Halsted,
Wisconsin Public Radio,
January 11, 2007
Parole
and police officials say they welcome a new law that requires the use of global positioning technology to track the movements
of about 100 released sex offenders in Wisconsin, but they predict it will cost the state more than $10 million a year.
The author of the bill calls that a wild exaggeration.
The sex offender GPS law signed by the governor last year
calls for using the technology only on serious sex offenders who have served time for multiple assaults on children.
Melissa Robers, director of the Department of Corrections’ sex offender,
says she sees GPS as a useful but costly tool that parole officers and police can use along with polygraph tests to prevent
sex offenders from repeating their crimes. She says the GPS will tell officials where somebody is, but it won’t say
what they’re doing when they’re there, something for which the polygraph is helpful.She says these technologies cost money, but they certainly want to use any tool they’re given
to increase accountability for those offenders.
The DOC
estimates it could cost as much as $10,000 a year per offender to implement GPS tracking, but Rep. Scott Suder, R-Abbotsford,
says California, Michigan and North Carolina have all implemented programs for much less than that.
Suder says the DOC estimates are way off and “completely over-inflated.” He believes
they are trying to pad their budget through this program and “playing games” to try to get some additional staff
and resources.
Suder, who sits on the Joint Finance Committee, says before the governor submits his corrected budget in February, he plans
to get quotes from GPS companies that will clarify how much it will cost to use the technology to keep track of dangerous
sex offenders.
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