California commission considering costs of sex offender laws

As detailed in this AP article, an "advisory panel created by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger considered Thursday how to fix the sex-offender law passed last year because it fails to say who is responsible for tracking offenders' whereabouts once they complete parole."  Here are more details:

The initiative, known as Jessica's Law, was approved by 70 percent of voters in 2006. It stiffens penalties for sex offenders, prohibits released offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or park and requires that they wear satellite tracking devices for the rest of their lives.   

But the law doesn't specify whether the state, counties or local police departments should have jurisdiction over offenders once they are off parole. It also does not include money to pay for lifetime GPS monitoring and has no penalty for ex-parolees who simply remove the ankle bracelets....

Representatives of county sheriff's and local police departments said they do not have enough money or staff to take over the monitoring program. The corrections department estimates it could cost about $7 per day to monitor each offender with a minimal GPS monitoring system. The state's more extensive GPS system costs about $33 per offender per day, but that includes the cost of the parole agents.

"We don't know what it's going to cost, and the conservative estimates are hundreds of millions of dollars" as more offenders complete parole, said Nancy O'Malley, chief assistant district attorney in Alameda County.

There are so many interesting and telling dimensions to this story: the public's broad support for GPS tracking without concern for the costly particulars; the inevitability of technocorrections being impeded by cost concerns; the willingness of Gov. Schwarzenegger to create a commission to study this issue while he opposed the creation of a much-needed sentencing commission for his state.

Some related posts on sex offender GPS tracking:

• A sober (and caffeinated) look at GPS tracking realities
• The devil's in the details of GPS tracking of sex offenders
• Is GPS tracking a better way?
• More on the pros and cons of GPS tracking
• The practical challenges of sex offender tracking
• New article examining incapacitation innovations