Sen. Jim Waring

Technology device will track felons convicted of crimes against kids
What the new law does: Requires individuals convicted of dangerous crimes against children to be monitored via Global Positioning System when released from custody conditionally or temporarily. $1.5 million has been appropriated from the general fund to cover costs.

Individuals who commit dangerous crimes against children will now be monitored with Global Positioning System (GPS) ankle bracelets when freed for probation, parole, community supervision or work release.
The change took effect on Nov. 1 and resulted from S1371 (Chapter 368), a bill that passed 57-0 in the House, 29-0 in the Senate and was signed into law by Governor Napolitano on June 21.
“We have to take the appropriate steps to protect children,” said Sen. Jim Waring, R-7, the bill’s sponsor.
“There’s a list of about 160 people from our Department of Corrections who are getting out this year and who’ve committed some of these heinous crimes, and we’re going to put the GPS system on them and see if it works in making sure we can keep track of them more easily.”
Dangerous crimes against children are defined in Arizona Revised Statute as 18 specific offenses against minors younger than 15 years of age; including sexual assault, molestation, kidnapping and child prostitution.
Mr. Waring said that ankle bracelets worn by individuals who commit these crimes will use passive GPS monitoring technology, recording whereabouts and requiring wearers to transmit data to authorities every 24 hours via modem.
Failure to transmit the data would violate the terms of the sex offender’s conditional or temporary release and result in a quick trip back behind bars.
He said he chose passive GPS over active technology (which tracks targets in real time) because the latter is prohibitively expensive and because passive tracking is still effective in preventing many sexual predators from slipping beneath the radar.
“If you don’t download the data from the thing or you try to take it off, you’re going to get caught,” he said. “It may not be today, but it’s going to be soon.”
S1371 appropriates $750,000 each to the Department of Corrections and the Arizona Supreme Court from the state’s general fund to cover monitoring costs in fiscal year 2007.
A 13-member joint legislative study committee on GPS monitoring was also created by the bill and will meet before the start of next session to review the program’s implementation and to evaluate new GPS technology, Mr. Waring added.
— By Daniel Raven, Arizona Capitol Times correspondent