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By Greg Bartlett

Last week, one of our friends was the victim of a domestic violence incident. Her husband was arrested, but she is fearful that he will be released on bail or, after his sentence, on probation or parole. She has a good reason to be concerned – many domestic violence offenders come back to injure or even kill the victim.

Protecting victims and the community often demands that offenders of certain crimes, such as domestic violence, robbery, sex offenses, and larceny, be kept away from the victims and out of the community. Victims don’t want to see the offender come back to injure them again, and the community doesn’t want the offender to harm its inhabitants and steal cars, electronics, and other possessions.

But on the other hand, some offenders could be released on bail, probation, or parole, thus decreasing the prison population and saving taxpayers money, and also allowing the offender to return to work or find work to help pay child support or other expenses or fines that the victim needs.

Thankfully, there is a way to release some prisoners while still protecting the victim and community. GPS monitoring allows police to watch released offenders in real time, keeping track of every move and noticing any wrong behavior.

For instance, GPS monitoring will notify police by text message, phone call, or email when an offender goes outside a predetermined area or enters a forbidden area. An offender may be restricted to just his house and work, for instance, while forbidden to go to his ex-wife’s house. If he visits her anyway, police will be notified immediately and the victim can often be alerted, too, thus allowing her to take necessary precautions.

Furthermore, because GPS monitoring tracks offenders constantly, it will allow police to see if a released offender is in the area when a crime is committed. So if a car thief is released on probation and police see that the thief was in a particular neighborhood when a car was stolen, they can investigate further to see if the car thief really was responsible. On the other hand, the monitoring also allows police to rule out a released offender if the GPS data shows that he or she was in another location entirely from the crime area.

Protecting individuals is important to law enforcement officials, but releasing certain offenders under GPS monitoring allows police to permit the offender’s freedom while still ensuring the safety of the victims and community.

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