GPS sex offender tracking

A word of Caution

The United States has more than 500,000 convicted sex offenders on its streets, and not every one of them stalks children. Many were convicted of a crime unrelated to child sexual assaults, have done their time, gotten help and are trying to live their lives without attracting attention. They don’t deserve to be labeled predators and draw public contempt and suspicion with every move.

Definitions

A Sex Offender is a person who has been convicted of a criminal sexual offense.

A Child Predator is a person who has been convicted of a criminal sexual offense when the victim is a minor and the defendant is not the parent of the victim.

A Sexually Violent Predator is a person who has been convicted of a criminal sexual offense and has been determined by the sentencing court to suffer from a mental abnormality or anti-social personality disorder which makes him likely to engage in predatory sexually violent offenses.

Top myths about sex offenders

Myth: Most men who commit sexual offenses do not know their victim.
Fact: A full 90 percent of victims knew their abusers. Nearly half of the abusers were family members.

Myth: Child abusers use physical force or threats to gain compliance from their victims.
Fact: In most cases, abusers lure their victims through deception or enticement. Force is very seldom used.

Myth: Child molesters frequent schoolyards and playgrounds to find victims.
Fact: Most children are abused by someone they already know.

Electronic Monitoring (EM)

Modern electronics is used for a better surveillance of offenders. There are a number of technologies available:

Passive systems
In these systems, wearers are periodically contacted by telephone to ensure that they are where they are supposed to be. The individual’s identity may be verified by such means as a password, a device that the subject wears or a biometric such as a fingerprint or retinal scan or by voice recognition.

Active Tagging systems
These systems utilize a device worn by the individual that continuously emits a signal. A corresponding device in the person’s home relays the signal to a monitoring station. If the wearer strays too far from home or breaks the device, the authorities are alerted.

Global Positioning Systems (GPS)
GPS can be used for detention, restriction and surveillance purposes. The technology eliminates the need for a device to be installed in the wearer’s home. GPS may be used to monitor an offender’s whereabouts at all times, and to alert a monitor if the offender enters or leaves a specified location or area during a specified time period.

Voice verification
Voice verification systems-considered passive systems-require an offender to answer a home telephone or to call a number shown on a pager.

When an offender enrolls in a program that offers voice verification, the offender’s voice is recorded as an electronic "voice print" and stored in the monitoring center for future verification. Offenders may be required to call the monitoring center or they may receive a call prompting them to state their social security number, date of birth or the time of day or repeat the phrase or sentence recorded earlier.

Some voice verification systems also allow offenders to carry a pager that flashes an 800 number to call immediately. This type of system offers a number of benefits. The caller’s voice is analyzed to verify identity and the number of the telephone the caller is using is captured. If the caller is scheduled to be at home during call-in time and the telephone number does not match the home number, the case officer is notified.

Other benefits of the pager system include the following:

--The pager is unobtrusive, so it will not bring attention to the offender in public.
--It does not have to be installed in the offender’s house.
--The monitoring area is not limited by distance from an electronic monitoring unit.

Offender Tracking is a type of electronic monitoring, using a GPS device

Active GPS offender tracking
The probation officer is able to locate the offender at any time of the day and can also review their location for any previous time frame. The victim’s home, work, or other location is "hot zoned" and when the offender goes into a "hot zoned" area, the probation officer is notified and the appropriate action may be taken.

When paroled sexual criminals approach places they are prohibited from entering, such as parks, schools or public restrooms where potential victims like women and children often appear, the beeping of electronic offender tracking devices will not only inform people about the potential danger, but the sound will also work as a reminder to sex offenders that they should leave the area immediately and control their behavior.

Passive GPS offender tracking
Passive GPS utilizes an ankle bracelet and a MTD (Miniature Tracking Device). The unit looks a little different, but it basically gives the officer the same information. There is one major difference: the information on the offender’s whereabouts is relayed to the monitoring center after the offender goes home and places the unit in the charger.

Passive offender tracking uses GPS to log the movements of the subject onto the device that the subject is wearing, but there is no real-time monitoring of the subjects whereabouts. At specified times (typically, in the evening at home) the device is connected to a base station which transfers the log data to the monitors.

Hybrid offender tracking
Hybrid offender tracking is largely passive as well, but goes into active mode and sends a real-time alert should the subject enter an exclusion zone.

Some of the current equipment in use is backed by GSM mobile phone technology, which can also track location in the event the GPS system is lost. See our A-GPS page.

EM offers two distinct advantages over incarceration

It reduces the public’s tax burden by allowing the offender to work and, subsequently, to pay for EM costs.

It reduces prison and jail overcrowding by providing a viable alternative to incarceration.

The community benefits because offenders are paying taxes, taking care of their families, and sometimes even going to school to increase their future employment options.

There are three main rationales behind the use of electronic monitoring

Detention
Electronic monitoring can be used to ensure that the individual remains in a designated place, for example their home. This was one of the first uses of electronic monitoring.

Restriction
Electronic monitoring can be used to ensure that an individual does not enter proscribed areas, or approach particular people, such as complainants, potential victims or even co-offenders.

Surveillance
Electronic monitoring can be used so that authorities can continuously track a person, without actually restricting their movements.

An active real-time offender tracking system can alert a victim and police if the offender enters certain restricted areas, such as a home, workplace or child’s school.

Situation in the USA

Electronic monitoring schemes have been in use in the USA since 1984.

Registration of sex offenders

In 1992 the Louisiana legislature enacted this state’s first law mandating the registration of persons convicted of sex offenses against victims who are minors.

In October of 1994 the US Congress enacted the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act, which provided for a system and outline for the various states to create sex offender registration programs in order to continue to receive certain federal funds. The various states had three years from the Act’s original enactment date of September 13, 1994 to comply with these standards. The Wetterling Act was modified on May 17, 1996 by way of "Megan’s Law" to add provisions relating to the release of registration information.

All 50 states and the federal government have versions of Megan’s Law, named for Megan Kanka, a 7-year-old New Jersey girl raped and killed in 1994 by a repeat offender who had moved into her neighborhood. These laws require offenders to register and report regularly to authorities. The registry is useful for parents, who can use it to check whether someone who will be around their children is a sex offender. The names, addresses and photographs of the most dangerous offenders, the Level 3 offenders, are posted on a web site.

National surveys have shown that about one-forth of all sex offenders who are on the streets have moved, failed to report new addresses to police and eluded detection. This means that of about 130,000 sex offenders nation-wide police does not know where they are.

Convicted sex offenders know all too well that they can loose their jobs and their homes and suffer other retaliation if the neighbors find out about their past. Many sex offenders don’t register, notwithstanding the prospect of going back to prison if they are caught, because they know the consequences.

The Offender Tracking Information System (OTIS) is a web site, providing Internet users with information about a wide variety of offenders who are, or were, under the supervision of the Michigan Department of Corrections. OTIS contains information about more than 300,000 prisoners, parolees and probationers.

California has 102,000 registered sex offenders, including about 40,000 who have been convicted of crimes that do not require disclosure to the public.

Florida has 26,000 registered sex offenders.

Florida's new law, which takes effect in September 2005 and will cost $13 million in the first year, will require those who molest children younger than 12 to wear satellite offender tracking devices for life once they leave prison.

The law, the Jessica Lunsford Act, will also force those offenders to stay in prison longer, establishing minimum sentences of 25 years for anyone convicted of "lewd and lascivious" acts against a child.

New York has about 21,000 registered sex offenders.

New research from the Department of Justice shows juveniles account for close to 2 percent of rapes and nearly one half of child molestation cases committed each year. Many juvenile sexual offenders can be successfully treated.

In 1998 the District of New Jersey was the first district in the country to make use of GPS offender tracking technology.

The beauty of GPS, of course, is that it monitors defendants/offenders day and night, raising the defendant’s/offender’s level of responsibility for his or her own actions, which in turn protects the community.

The logic is that a sex offender is a suspect when a sexual crime is committed. Wearing an electronic bracelet would clear anyone who is under suspicion by providing proof positive of the person’s whereabouts. Conversely, it would also aid in apprehending the perpetrator.

When a crime occurs, the location of the probationers is matched against a crime incident database to validate or rule out possible involvement by a probationer.

Early June 2005 the senate passed the Sex Offender Registration Reform Act. It makes community notification about sex offenders mandatory, requires lifetime registration with authorities instead of 10 years, posts photos and information on the internet about all levels of offenders instead of just the most serious, level three, and it requires level three offenders to wear GPS tracking devices.

Will this really make a better society?

"All level offenders", of whom photos and information is published on the internet, means that in the US more than hundred thousand individuals will be forced from their homes and their jobs. A normal social life will be impossible for them. They cannot support their families anymore. Their children will suffer a lot from this situation and a whole new generation of losers will be created.

Some researchers and treatment providers say that the resulting stress and instability can make them more likely to relapse. A professor at Lynn University in Florida said that psycho-social stresses like a lack of social support have been linked to repeat offenses among criminals.

If politicians only want to please the general public and are willing to adapt any laws according to the sentiment of the day, legislation will one day attain the level of TV commercials.

Reading further about the situation in other great nations, you will see that nowhere else the information of offenders is put on official websites.

Situation in the UK

Convicted sex offenders in England and Wales have been required to register their whereabouts with police since 1997.

Curfew orders with electronic monitoring began in July 1995 in three areas (Manchester, Reading and Norfolk).

Since 1999 over 175,000 offenders have been tagged, each for an average of approximately four months. On any given day there are approximately 10,000 tagged offenders amongst us.

Small pilot projects for the use of GPS offender tracking devices were set up in Great Manchester, the West Midlands and Hampshire in September 2004.

New forms of public protection-and for some offenders, more humane options-are now possible. It is surely better for a reforming and newly-released sex offender to be satellite tracked than not to be released at all, or to be released into a community where, Megan’s-law style, everyone is entitled to know his whereabouts.

Tagging is a way of keeping track of offenders in the community. Offenders are compelled to be in their homes at certain times each day-usually between early evening and early morning. An electronic device is attached to the offender’s wrist or ankle and this tag communicates with a monitoring machine in the offender’s home. The machine is linked via a telephone line to a monitoring center. Tagging orders are not monitored by probation, but by the private companies that run the service.

Private sector contractors such as Securicor Justice Services Ltd or Premier Monitoring Services Ltd are responsible for monitoring offenders. They install electronic monitoring equipment in the offender’s home.

On Guard Plus Limited (OGPL) from Manchester is one of the pioneers in the UK roll-out of the tagging program, since January 1999. In the UK OGPL supplies Securicor Custodial Services Ltd, who provides the electronic monitoring service in the Northern region to the Government. Securicor is responsible for providing the complete service to the Government and has chosen OGPL as its technology solutions provider for electronic monitoring.

A systems facility integrator, On Guard Plus Limited uniquely offers an innovative 'open' system, "Independence II", which monitors information from various brands of monitoring equipment currently available. Each of these typically comprises a small transmitter on an offender’s ankle or wrist and, at the place of curfew, a monitoring unit.

Tagging systems work by proximity. This is achieved by the electronic tag or Personal Identification Device (PID) worn around the offender’s ankle and communicating with the table top box or Home Monitoring Unit (HMU) which in turn sends information via a telephone line to the Independence II Central Computer System.

Electronic monitoring in England and Wales is delivered by private security companies under contract to the Home Office. Three companies operate in four regions in England and Wales: Securicor Justice Services, Reliance Monitoring Services and Premier Monitoring Services. The contractors provide a complete service. They supply and install electronic monitoring equipment, they monitor those on the program, they follow up violations and if necessary they will either return the subject to court themselves or report the violation to another appropriate agency for enforcement action.

Canada

In Canada a national sex offender registry came into force in December 2004, requiring convicted offenders to register within 15 days after being released from prison, or if they are ordered to register. Offenders will also be required to reregister annually, and within two weeks of changing their home address. Only accredited police agencies will have access to the information through a new national sex offender database, maintained by the Mounties.

Japan

On June 1, 2005 the National Police Agency started a new system to keep track of convicted child molesters after their release from prison, in hopes it will help reduce sex crimes against children. The Justice Ministry will provide the NPA with the addresses of convicted sex offenders after their release from prison, and the NPA will register them on its watch list of potential repeat offenders.

Based on the information, police will regularly check whether the individuals actually reside at the addresses. The new system will allow police to warn or instruct those on the watch list if they see signs, such as stalking or luring of children, that indicate offenders may commit further sex crimes. Lawyers pointed to the possibility that information on sex offenders could be leaked to their neighbors, posing a further, social, punishment for those who completed prison terms and hinder their efforts to be rehabilitated.

To alleviate such concerns, the new system obliges police to keep information about those on the list confidential. Thus, unlike in the U.S. and other countries, neighborhoods in Japan will not be informed of the presence of possible sexual predators in their midst. If, after a period of at least five years of scrutiny, police judge that an ex-convict on the list will not engage in further sex crimes, that person will be removed from the watch list.

Australia

The Australian National Child Offender Register (ANCOR) has become operational nationwide in early 2005. Under the register anyone convicted of sexual or other serious offences against children will be legally obliged to notify police of their address, places they frequent, car registration and other personal details.

It is a police-only information tool to which only designated officers will have access. Data holdings will not be released to any other outside bodies.

The privately run website MAKO (Movement Against Kindred Offenders) contains details about convicted pedophiles and sex offenders in Australia.

New Zealand

Extended supervision orders were introduced in the Parole (Extended Supervision) Amendment Act 2004, which came into force in July 2004. Offenders convicted of special sexual offences involving victims less than 16 years of age and who received a finite term of imprisonment are eligible for an extended supervision order.

This means they will have to report to their probation officer regularly, may be obliged to attend treatment programs and counseling as directed and will be subject to home and employment visits.

The highest-risk offenders may be placed under home detention-like conditions for the first twelve months of the order. Electronic monitoring may be imposed for the entire extended supervision order.

Manufacturers of Electronic Monitoring technology

iSECUREtrac
iSECUREtrac’s GPS-based systems consist of a Personal Tracking Unit (PTU), designed to clip onto one’s belt, an ankle bracelet and a charging base station for night time, that powers the PTU for 16 to 18 hours of use the next day. The Passive model 2150 has data collection and storage, and the Active unit (2250) adds secure, real-time notification via phone, e-mail and/or pager to pre-determined individuals on a tiered/as-need basis.

Officers can set up exclusion zones and geo-code areas for those who are territory restricted. Automatic alerts can notify officers when exclusion zones have been entered by an offender or defendant. By adding the company’s tracNET24 integrated Web-based offender tracking and monitoring system, public authorities, probation officers, bonding agents and court officers can access advanced offender management tools on-line. For instance, the units can provide detailed online mapping of an offender’s travels during a specified period, with zoom-in/drill-down capability on street-level maps delivering precise addresses of homes and businesses visited or nearby.

Pro Tech Monitoring Inc.
The Pro Tech Monitoring SMART System utilizes GPS, the cellular networking system, proprietary software, a Customer Call Center and a Surveillance Data Center. The SMART (Satellite Monitoring And Remote Tracking) system provides real-time offender tracking (active tracking) and post-process, or passive offender tracking capabilities. An ankle bracelet transmitter electronically tethers the offender to a Portable Tracking Device, or the Miniature Tracking Device, which communicates position and compliance information to the Surveillance Data Center over a wireless connection (active) or a standard land-line connection (passive). Correction officers are provided with unlimited access to the stored data via a secure Internet connection or by contacting the 24/7 call center.

Pro Tech provides notification of non-compliance via pager, email and/or fax. When the offender violates his hot zones, the parole officer can send a message to the belt-worn pager, "Get home. Be at my office at 8 a.m." Victims and potential victims may also be equipped with a pager to provide early warning of an offender entering a specified exclusion zone (active offender tracking only).

One of the most useful tools provided as part of the system is the mapping capability, which is accessed via secure Internet for displaying real-time position and historical tracking data. The proprietary mapping software provides the officer with a useful tool for viewing an offender’s position and tracks relative to established inclusion and exclusion zones that have been established by the corrections officer for the offender.

Pro Tech’s CrimeTrax system electronically links the movement of GPS tracked offenders with reported crime incidents and notifies police and corrections officials when an offender is detected at or near a crime scene.

BI Behavioral Interventions Inc.
BI has provided offender management and rehabilitation solutions for 20 years to government customers. BI operates 10 re-entry or day-reporting centers and 24 Community Correctional Service Centers.

BI ExacuTrack uses a radio frequency receiver, which is located in a base station, and transmitter worn by the offender to detect the presence and absence of an offender at his or her residence. In addition to radio frequency monitoring BI ExacuTracm uses a GPS tracking unit to record the location of the offender while the offender is away from home. Designed specifically for community corrections officers, the ExacuTrack web-based case management system is easy to learn and use. Offender information is stored in a central, secured monitoring system and available to officers by any computer with Internet access and Internet Explorer 5.5 or higher.

This provides 24/7 access to real-time offender data and allows officers to quickly and easily enroll offenders, set offender schedules, create inclusion and exclusion zones, customize alert notification and alert escalation procedures, and close alerts. BI ExacuTrack uses one of the industry-leading mapping technologies, Microsoft MapPoint, to provide visual maps for creating inclusion and exclusion zones. Officers simply use the computer mouse to draw points on a map screen and create zones. Officers can define unlimited zones and schedules per offender.

The ExacuTrack monitors up to 100 exclusion or inclusion zones. These are locations a person can not enter or must stay confined to during certain times.

BI has a partnership with Digital Angel, allowing BI to use the new Digital Angel offender tracking device, which incorporates Assisted GPS technology and transmits-receives with GSM or CDMA protocols, making it usable worldwide.

Strategic Technologies Inc.
Strategic was incorporated in 1984 and is focused on developing high level security equipment for Corrections and Law Enforcement Agencies. From On Guard Plus Limited (OGPL), a wholly owned subsidiary of Strategic Technologies Inc., comes the BluTag, the world’s first all-in-one real-time offender tracking device. BluTag is about the same size as a small PC mouse, is comfortable to wear and weighs in at just over 150g. It has a fully re-chargeable battery, is completely waterproof to 5 meters, has a tamper resistant strap, a panic alarm, personal alarm notification and on-board management controls. Thanks to intelligent battery management software, the battery lasts in excess of 30 hours even when used in full active tracking mode. Using the specially designed charging base, it can usually be re-charged in just 30 minutes while still being worn.

Incorporating layered location technology like GPS and worldwide GSM communications means that BluTag can compensate for poor performance of any single location technology. Where GPS is poor, such as inside buildings, the device resorts to GSM positioning. The monitoring system uses the GSM network for remotely programming new control parameters into BluTag such as inclusion or exclusion zones. BluTag uses the same network for sending location data and alarms to the monitoring system. BluTag can be set to 3 different modes: • Fully Active: all location data reported in real-time • Semi Active: location data reported in real-time only if an exclusion zone is entered or inclusion zone is left • Passive: location data and violations only reported when the monitoring system calls for it.

Strategic Technologies also offers a curfew monitoring system that consists of three major components: (1) the iTX, worn by the participant, is a small light weight radio frequency transmitter strapped to the ankle or wrist; (2) the iRX (receiver), placed in the area of confinement, receives coded signals from the iTX at regular intervals; and (3) the Central Computer, at a secure monitoring facility which receives and stores information on each participant. Strategic’s The Warden is a biometric monitoring process that uses voice recognition as a direct method of identifying offenders placed on residential detention.

Satellite Tracking of People LLC (STOP)
STOP acquired in December 2004 the VeriTracks business line and the related key personnel from General Dynamics as well as Verquis LLC from Strategic Technologies Inc. The acquisitions brought together first-of-its-kind technology in the field of Global Positioning System (GPS) offender tracking within the criminal justice system, including patented crime scene correlation capabilities and the only one-piece GPS bracelet available in the market at that time (BluTag). The users can overlay the BluTag offender tracking system with their crime scene data to detect the proximity of the electronically monitored offender near crime scenes.

Premier Geografix Ltd
Premier Geografix is the successor Company to Geografix Ltd. This Company designed, specified and commissioned the GEM Electronic Monitoring System. In November 1998, Geografix was acquired by Premier Prison Services as part of its strategy, for the delivery of integrated offender electronic monitoring. Premier Geografix Limited and Premier Monitoring Services Limited are both wholly owned subsidiaries of Premier Prison Services Limited, the leading Company in custodial management within the United Kingdom. Premier Geografix distributes iSECUREtrac’s tracNET24 GPS offender tracking solution in the United Kingdom.

Metro-Trak
Metro-Trak offers a traditional radio frequency system to verify an offender’s curfew schedule, as well as Active and Passive GPS technology. Both types of GPS offender tracking can be programmed for inclusion or exclusion zones, and both modes typically present offender tracking information with mapping technology. Metro-Trak also offers a Voice Verification technology.

USA SecureTrac/WorldTrac
USA SecureTrac is an authorized distributor of the BI Offender Tracking and Monitoring equipment in the western states of the USA. The solution combines advanced offender tracking technologies, crime analysis tools and data integration technology to automatically identify and report the correlation of an offender at or near the scene of a crime.

Wherify Wireless

Wherify Wireless, well known from the Wristwatch Child Locator and the GPS Locator Phone, also manufactures the GPS Offender Locator. The Offender Locator is a body-worn electronic monitoring system that converges three major offender tracking technologies (RF, passive GPS and active GPS) into a single device.

Electronic Monitoring Technologies Elmo-Tech Ltd.
Elmo-Tech is a wholly owned subsidiary of the London Stock Exchange listed Dmatek Ltd. and has its headquarters in Tel Aviv, Israel. Elmo-Tech specializes in the development and manufacturing of electronic monitoring systems for law enforcement applications. Its systems are employed by private operators and government agencies throughout the U.S., Europe and Pacific Rim.

Elmo-Tech STaR (Satellite Tracking and Reporting) system is part of the company's unified monitoring solution, enabling monitoring programmes administrators to run different monitoring level products on the same platform. Elmo-Tech's STaR GPS system is at the cutting edge of available offender tracking technology, offering a range of operational benefits and a reliable methodology. Elmo-Tech's STaR systems is currently being evaluated by other clients in the US and elsewhere.

Elmo-Tech Ltd. reached an agreement with Securicor-EMS, a US subsidiary of Group 4 Securicor, to provide home detention systems to the Department of Corrections of a major US State. This agreement marks a first cooperative effort between Elmo-Tech and Securicor EMS, the second of three national monitoring service providers in the US to use Elmo-Tech's equipment.

Sentinel
The TrakMate GPS Offender Tracking Unit is a revolutionary GPS offender tracking device. It is a fully functional GPS-enabled cellular telephone carried by the offender at all times while away from the residence. In addition to tracking the offender, officers can call the TrakMate and speak to the offender at any time. No other GPS equipment offers this immediate "officer to offender" communication capability.

The TrakMate is designed to be used through all levels of GPS monitoring (Level 1 Passive GPS, Level 2 On-Demand GPS or Level 2 Active GPS). By using the same equipment for all of the GPS levels, an officer is able to adjust an offender's GPS supervision without having to change equipment or notify the offender.

Future Offender Tracking Technologies

The most simple solution consists of the offender to always have a GPS-enabled cell phone with him. Probation officers will be able to track offender’s location and call them anytime, day or night. Offenders on probation won’t be able to make outgoing calls and will be required to answer the phone anytime it rings. Between two calls there is no control if the offender is at the same location as his phone.

A much tougher solution will be a cell phone with GPS receiver and a RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) reader incorporated. The offender wears a non-removable RFID tag. This can be incorporated in a watch or a nice looking bracelet, as the tag can be passive and does not require any power. It is the phone that verifies every 5 or 10 minutes if the tag is still within reading distance. Two or three meters maximum should be enough. If the reader can not read the tag, the phone sends an alarm to the probation officer. And if the tag has been tampered with, it will not be readable anymore; hence an alarm will be triggered.

Voice verification, being a software solution, can always be added to these methods.

Important Notice

Despite popular believe and sensational press contributions, implantable GPS/cell phone offender tracking devices do not exist and will not exist some day soon. The reasons are two-fold: first the GPS receiver and the cell phone modem both need rather big minimum surfaces for their antennas. Second, and more important, both need a lot of power for a correct functioning. This would ask for a rather big and heavy battery. And how does this battery get recharged? An electrical connector somewhere in the human skin will certainly be at least uncomfortable.

Protection for schools

Raptor Technologies has developed a school safety system called V-Soft (Visitor, student or faculty tracking). V-Soft is a web based software application that helps schools track visitors, students, faculty, and volunteers to enhance campus security. Here is how it works: when a visitor, parent or contractor enters the school and goes to the main office they are required to present their drivers license to the secretary. He or she will swipe it through a credit card like machine. That produces a dated badge with the individual’s name, photo and destination. It also checks the name and birth date on the license against all available databases of sexual offenders. This is public information. No other information about the individual is provided.

Law Enforcement Software

Child Exploitation Tracking System (CETS).

CETS is a Microsoft-developed, security-enhanced database that works with existing offender tracking systems in various global jurisdictions to allow investigators to tap into the data and make connections that help them more effectively track, locate and ultimately arrest offenders. Police services are able to tap into the CETS system via an Internet portal over a secure connection. The system has been in active beta testing since at least October 2004, and the Toronto Police Service together with the RCMP claim it has helped in the arrest of at least four alleged criminals (March 2005). To date, Microsoft has donated the software and services behind CETS to the Toronto Police Service and Canadian authorities. Microsoft has also pledged to continue to support it both locally and on a global basis making it available for free to authorities that want to use the service.

CrimeStat is a spatial statistics program for the analysis of crime incident locations, developed by Ned Levine & Associates under grant 2002-IJ-CX-0007 from the National Institute of Justice. The program is Windows-based and interfaces with most desktop GIS programs. The program provides supplemental statistical tools to aid law enforcement agencies and criminal justice researchers in their crime mapping efforts. CrimeStat is being used by many police departments around the country as well as by criminal justice and other researchers. The new version is 3.0 (CrimeStat III) and is available free of charge. The program inputs incident locations (e.g., robbery locations) in 'dbf', 'shp', ASCII or ODBC-compliant formats using either spherical or projected coordinates. It calculates various spatial statistics and writes graphical objects to ArcViewR, ArcGISR, MapInfoR, Atlas*GIST, SurferR for Windows, and ArcView Spatial AnalystR.

The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory developed the Computer Aided Tracking and Characterization of Homicides (known by its acronym CATCH) to assist police officers and other criminal investigators. The software assesses likely characteristics of unknown offenders, by relating a specific crime case to other cases, and by providing a tool for clustering similar cases that may be attributed to the same offenders. CATCH is a collection of tools that provide advanced data mining and visualization capabilities. These tools include clustering maps, query tools, geographic maps, timelines, etc. Each tool gives the crime analyst a different view of the case data. The clustering tools in CATCH are based on artificial neural networks.

Daily costs for the different solutions

Tagging: $2.50 - $4.50

GPS offender tracking (passive): $4.50 - $12.50

GPS offender tracking (active): $8.00 - $15.00

GPS phones: $1.50

Incarceration: $45.00 - $125.00

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