MS Lawmaker Sees Hi-Tech Tracking as Solution to Predator Monitoring
by Ed Thomas
November 21, 2005
(AgapePress) - - A Mississippi legislator has set the wheels in motion for a bill next legislative session that would make it legal to use satellite tracking for keeping tabs on the most serious convicted sexual offenders.As in most states, Mississippi ex-convicts with sexual offense records are released after serving their jail time, with a directive to register with local authorities. But those sexual offenders do not always comply with regulations set up to keep track of their whereabouts. In addition, overcrowded prisons will eventually release inmates upon completion of their sentences.
Mississippi State Representative John Mayo of Clarksdale is suggesting an alternative method for keeping track of sexual offenders who are considered to be the most likely to attack someone again: Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite tracking with homing bracelets or implants.
"Once they've done their time and they go into a community, a sexual offender has to register with the local authorities," he says, "and that's essentially all they have to do: register. Some do, some don't."
It is for that exact reason Mayo is pushing for Mississippi to join other states already employing the high-tech approach -- specifically, Oklahoma, Ohio, and Missouri. And California officials have recently signed a bill into law authorizing it. Mayo has pre-filed a bill for the next legislative session in the Magnolia State.
"My bill would not deal with every sexual offender," the lawmaker explains. "It would deal with [sexual predators who] either prison medical staff or court-appointed medical persons determine, ... although he's done his time, may attack again."
Mayo says his research shows at least 2,400 sex offenders who finished jail time have been released from prison in the state in the last ten years. Many of them, he says, have not registered upon release because there has not been any tracking in place to ensure they do it. He is hopeful his bill will remedy that situation.
Ed Thomas, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
