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| SMART Prison Alternative Offered |
| By The Express-Times |
| Published: 03/20/2003 |
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Marie Marth isn't God, but the Northampton County (Penn.) probation officer knows where her offenders are every minute of every day. She oversees the county's Satellite Monitoring and Remote Tracking system. Launched in January, the SMART system uses global satellite technology to track offenders' whereabouts. Offenders hooked up to the system wear ankle bracelets, which must remain within 100 feet of a transmitter box. The box is about the size of a woman's purse and can be carried with a shoulder strap. The transmitter sends a signal to a satellite, which pinpoints the ankle bracelet's exact location onto a computer screen map similar to maps available at Web sites such as Mapquest and Yahoo. The older versions of ankle bracelets tell the probation department if a person on house arrest leaves home, but don't indicate where the offender went when he or she left the home. The SMART system alerts Marth if the offender enters a 'hot zone,' such as a known drug neighborhood or the home of a crime victim or relative of a victim. In such a case, Marth is immediately paged on her cell phone. She can page the offender and order him or her to leave the hot zone. She can also call police, if necessary. 'If someone calls in and says 'I saw (a sex offender) hanging around a bus stop,' now we know if he was there,' Marth said. 'What it says to those guys is, 'We know everything you're doing.' ' Marth can check the offender's whereabouts on computers any time at her home or at work. The offender's location is continuously updated. 'We know how fast they're going in their cars,' said probation department chief Mark Mazziotta. 'Isn't that amazing?' The system already has offenders looking over their shoulders. Marth warned one offender that he drove 77 mph to work and needed to slow down. He didn't speed again. He told Marth he was worried that police officers he passed in his car had been summoned by Marth to keep an eye on him. At least four of the county's six SMART units are in use. More units will arrive as more offenders are sentenced to the SMART system. The program is designed for sex offenders or abusive boyfriends and husbands whose crimes might not warrant prison but who are likely to re-offend if they are placed on house arrest, according to Mazziotta. Defense attorneys and civil rights advocates are watching carefully to make sure the probation department doesn't violate offenders' rights. 'It really is big brotherish,' said defense attorney Scott Wilhelm. 'I would be inclined to say I don't care for it. For a government official to know everything they're doing, it's a slippery slope.' Wilhelm thinks it would be inappropriate to use the SMART system for people out on bail. The county's pre-trial services division does not use the system to monitor people on bail, but it could be a possibility in the future, Mazziotta said. Mazziotta said that although offenders surrender some freedoms while on the SMART system, the alternative is incarceration. Faced with that possibility, offenders are willing to permit authorities to track them and search their homes or workplaces. 'People are given a choice in court: you can use this or you can go to jail,' Mazziotta said. 'Everyone chooses this.' 'I think any option to incarceration is a good option,' said defense attorney Philip Lauer. 'Incarceration is rarely beneficial to anyone. I think it's a good idea.' Larry Frankel of the Pennsylvania chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union said the system doesn't appear to violate people's rights, unless the probation department permanently saves the computer data of where the person traveled while wearing the bracelet. 'Those records should be destroyed,' Frankel said. Mazziotta said those records can be valuable, however. He knows of one offender in another county who sexually abused a girl while on probation with the SMART system. The offender was no longer on probation when the allegation came to light. The offender denied abusing the girl, but computer records showed he was where the girl claimed he was when the alleged incident took place, Mazziotta said. Mazzoitta said the system pays for itself. A $66,000 state grant will cover 75 percent of the cost this year. The rest comes from a $10-a-day fee paid by offenders using the system. The grant will decrease each of the next three years. As the state funding goes down, the amount offenders must pay will increase. The SMART system is in use in 28 states by 150 different agencies to track 2,200 offenders, according to Steve Chapin, the CEO of Pro-Tech Monitoring of Palm Harbor, Fla., which sells and operates the SMART system units. 'This is really the next generation of electronic monitoring,' Chapin said. Mazziotta had hoped the system would be running last summer, but it was held up due to a contractual dispute between the county's solicitor and the company s attorney. It was worth the wait, according to Mazziotta. There's nothing like telling a defendant we're watching him, Mazziotta said. |
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