When a GPS Bracelet isn't Enough

A helpful reader alerted me that some Washington lawmakers are pushing for a brave new world in sex offender punishment:

Lawmakers are considering a controversial bill that would outfit sex offenders with a surgically-implanted device that tracks their movement. 

The devices would replace the ankle bracelets that are currently used to track offenders. The bracelets have been criticized as a lacking device as offenders have successfully removed them in the past before disappearing off of the radar. 

"(The devices would) be a little more difficult to take off," said Rep. Maralyn Chase, D-Edmonds. 

Chase is among a handful of lawmakers are looking into radio chips that can be planted under the skin. Some of the designs are no larger than a grain of rice. 

The radio chips would allow police to track an offender from a sex offender using the same technology used at the Tacoma Narrows bridge toll. 

"Right now, we get a postcard at home every few weeks saying we have a sex offender moving into the neighborhood. But unless you know where they live and what they look like how are you going to have protection?" said Chase. 

The Department of Corrections admits even with the current devices, officers often lose signal. DOC officials also note that no tracking device can prevent crime. 

"It certainly is not prevention. It certainly is not 100-percent," said Anna Aylward with the state DOC.

The bill is currently in committee. 

If only such innovative minds could harness their efforts to find real, long-term solutions to the problems of sexual violence. Physical implants would really take monitoring of sex offenders to a whole new level. I didn't find it particuarly comforting that the article compared applying the devices to sex offenders, who are actual living human beings, to similar techonology being used for vehicles passing through tolls.

Comments

[eAdvocate]

After significant research I cannot find any RFID Chip that is implanted that will work like GPS. RFID type chips require something like wanding or like at airports where one passes through a arch. If anyone knows of such a chip that would work like a GPS unit, please post the information here. It sounds like state officals have been sold a snake oil idea.

[Daniel]

I agree with eAdvocate. It's not gonna work. Anything implantable that will work like GPS has to have a clear view of the sky. Clear view of sky, implantable, contradiction in terms. RFID is the same, it can be easily blocked.

Doesn't sound like snake oil. It sounds like a fat contract for a campaign donation.

[Joe Power]

And what happens when a prankster clones the chip several times and implants them in squirrels which are then released? After a false arrest or two the implantee is going to have excellent grounds for suing the city. (If you don't want to get the poor squirrels involved, how about setting off an EMP bomb that would fry these chips painlessly and without the implantee's knowledge?)

If that sounds far-fetched, what about those folks who object on religious grounds? (either being marked w/ the number of the beast or being forced to undergo a surgery that requires blood transfusion - because any operation that doesn't could be easily reversed.)

Then there's the issue of resources. Who is going to pay for these operations and does it make sense to divert whole surgical teams from life saving operations for this nonsense? What do we do about people who can't have the surgery for valid medical reasons?

Like so many technological fixes to social issues, this is a solution in search of a problem. It will solve nothing, cost millions and open the door to the further erosion of everyone's liberty.

[jjoe]

They don't care if it works, they want the ability to test the technology on subjects, and sex offenders and illegal immigrants are the perfect political foil, something I had predicted several years ago. It's all about advancing surveillance technology to control the public, yet the public can't figure that out.