U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

NCJRS Virtual Library

The Virtual Library houses over 235,000 criminal justice resources, including all known OJP works.
Click here to search the NCJRS Virtual Library

Global Positioning Satellite System: Tracking Offenders in Real Time

NCJ Number
185116
Journal
Corrections Today Volume: 62 Issue: 4 Dated: July 2000 Pages: 76-80
Author(s)
Ron Mercer; Murray Brooks; Paula T. Bryant
Date Published
July 2000
Length
5 pages
Annotation
In January 1997 the Florida Department of Corrections began a pilot project that used the Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) system to track the movement and location of offenders in real time, 24 hours a day, notifying probation officers of violations as they occur.
Abstract
GPS is a network of satellites used by the U.S. Department of Defense to pinpoint targets and guide bombs. It has been used for everything from helping hikers find their way through the woods to guiding law enforcement officers to stolen vehicles. Tracking offenders living in the community has proved to be a useful application of this technology. With GPS an officer can track an offender on a computer screen and can tell probation officers what street the offender is on anywhere in the State. Administrators in Tallahassee also can track any offender statewide via GPS's Web page. The system also creates customized inclusion and exclusion zones for offenders. Prior to GPS, probation officers had no way of providing early warnings to victims and no way of making certain areas off-limits. With GPS everything is archived, so if an officer needs to know an offender's whereabouts in the past, that information is readily available. To complete the linkup to GPS, offenders strap a pager-sized unit to their ankles and carry lunchbox-sized personal tracking devices (PTDs). Officers can send messages to the offenders via the PTDs, which have display areas for text. If an offender is in an exclusion zone, the officer can warn him/her to immediately leave that zone. One benefit of satellite tracking is the additional surveillance and increased protection it offers crime victims.