State officials promoted new GPS technology last year as a way to constantly monitor juvenile offenders, enabling the state to know the exact location of troubled youths and help keep communities and victims safe.
But the shooting of a 5-year-old girl, caught in the crossfire as two juvenile offenders argued July 2, has cast attention on the limitations of the devices. Even though the person suspected in the shooting, a 17-year-old with a long juvenile record, was wearing a monitoring unit on his leg, officials did not know his whereabouts in the lead-up to the shooting and its aftermath.
The reason appears to be that the new technology - while superior in some respects - is still easily thwarted by offenders who don't want to be tracked.
After Gov. Martin O'Malley set aside $1 million in the budget last year for the GPS units, officials now say they have serious questions about the technology and the vendor that administers it, Nebraska-based iSECUREtrac Inc. State and local officials have been asking questions of the Department of Juvenile Services, which met this week with representatives from the vendor.
"We have not had any serious problems with it relative to this point, but this case has raised some concerns about not only the technology but also some questions about the vendor that monitors this system for us under contract," Donald W. DeVore, secretary of the state juvenile services agency, said Thursday.
Across the country, law enforcement agencies are embracing enhanced GPS technology as a way to keep tabs on violent offenders, using the devices to track juveniles, child predators and those accused of domestic violence, among others. The technology is often promoted as a way to quickly alert police if the offenders get too close to their victims or violate terms of their sentences.
As of July 1, the Department of Juvenile Services was using global positioning devices to track 188 youths statewide, including 71 in Baltimore, state data show.
Officials say the new technology brings many benefits over previous versions of home monitoring devices. It consists of two parts - an anklet and a device the size of an MP3 player called a personal tracking unit, which must be within 150 feet of each other. Offenders who keep the two components of the device together are tracked as they go to school or work, or venture into areas they have been instructed to stay away from.
