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Posted by: DANIPD

Menino wants GPS eye on gun suspects
By Michele McPhee
Wednesday, February 15, 2006 - Updated: 05:33 AM EST

Mayor Thomas M. Menino is pushing a bold plan to force suspected gangbangers to wear GPS-monitored electronic bracelets while out on bail for gun crimes, in a bid to stem the record number of shootings and murders that have doused Boston with blood.
But the city’s district attorney and one victim of violent victim questioned last night how well a satellite’s eye in the sky can work to restrain criminals bent on violence.
Suffolk District Attorney Dan Conley said that without a suspect’s consent, prosecutors could not demand the use of GPS tracking unless they held a so-called 58A “dangerousness hearing” to determine if the suspect can be restrained beyond normal bail requirements.
“I am impressed with the possibilities,” Conley said. “But it should not be a substitute for appropriate bail or incarceration for hardened criminals. Under current law, the court has very little authority to mandate the use of the GPS tracking system.”
Last night, Christina Carvalho, a 22-year-old Dorchester woman whose family has been ripped apart by gun violence, said the idea is “ridiculous.”
“How is that going to work? If someone gets locked up and they want to retaliate, they can just send someone else,” said Carvalho, whose oldest brother, Luis, was murdered by gunmen in 2000. Three years later, another brother, Chris, 26, was paralyzed from the neck down by a shooting at a South End gas station.
“They need a police car parked on every street, that’s what they need,” Carvalho said. “Spend the money on police, not bracelets.”
If Menino’s plan is enacted, it would mean that repeat offenders will be banned from “exclusion zones” such as rival gang members’ turf, drug locations, and any other area where it is likely they will encounter a witness or victim.
If the suspect does venture into one of those spots, an alarm will signal probation officers and an alert will be sent to Boston police.
Currently, 92 sex offenders are monitored by “Trakmate” ankle bracelets, which use cell phone and satellite signals to pinpoint exact locations of convicts. Under Menino’s plan, the program will be expanded to track high-risk offenders out on bail, said police Commissioner Kathleen O’Toole.
“Gun crimes would be our top priority,” O’Toole said yesterday. “With this we are not only telling impact players that we know who they are — but where you are.”
Menino said that he has spoken to Boston Municipal Court Chief Justice Charles R. Johnson about the monitoring program and received approval to begin asking judges who set low bails for violent crimes to require that suspects wear the bracelet.
Currently, officials have 100 additional bracelets ready for immediate use, said Deputy Commissioner Paul Lucci of the Probation Department. Taxpayers will be hit for the cost of roughly $10 a day for each suspect fitted for the bracelet.
How it works
A GPS bracelet attached to a con is like a LoJack on a car — it monitors a suspect’s movements, transmitting his location from a satellite feed into yellow dots on a screen that is then watched around-the-clock by probation officers.
The “client” — as suspected gang bangers, sex offenders and career criminals are referred to by the company that created the “TrakMate” GPS hardware — wears the device on his ankle and carries a cell phone so probation officers and cops can contact him.
The mapping software allows law enforcement to store a suspect’s information, including work and home addresses, color-coding locations with blue dots during curfew and red dots when the person is outside of schedule.
The data can be queried against a known location of criminal activity for possible matches.
As a result, if a suspect wearing the bracelet is involved in another crime, his whereabouts at the time of the incident can be pinpointed to the minute, said Deputy Commissioner Paul Lucci, who heads the electronics division of the state’s probation department.
If a suspect leaves his “approved zone” and heads toward an “exclusion zone,” an alarm will go off, alerting probation. The bracelet also will beep and vibrate, as probation calls the offender who is breaking the conditions of his release.

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Posted by: dcs2244

If it is out on bail...it has posted a surety of some kind. If you are worried that it may commit another crime (gun or otherwise), then DON'T LET IT OUT ON BAIL.

It has not been convicted...once it is, put the GPS thing on it.

Innocent until PROVEN guilty. To put the GPS thing on before it is convicted is to assume guilt. Having assumed it is guilty, it follows that we can dispense with the CJ system: just put the creature in jail: no trial, no report to file. Think of all the unemployed (and unemployable!)lawyers and judges. Kinda funny, actually.

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