The new Florida law monitoring sex offenders highlights the role of technology, reports the Christian Science Monitor. Florida, with 30,000 registered sex offenders is believed to be the first state to mandate lifetime satellite monitoring for an entire group of people who commit a certain crime. “These people never change their ways; they just change their address,” says Allan Measom of Texas-based Raptor Technologies, which developed a computer system to identify undesirables attempting to gain admission to schools, and who has long advocated setting up a national sex offender database.
The Miami Herald has reported that Florida had lost track of more than 1,800 sex offenders. The state will spend about $7 million of the $11 million appropriated for Jessica’s law on the global positioning system devices, which will involve offenders wearing an ankle tag and a transmitting device around their waist. Pennsylvania, Oregon, and New York are among places considering satellite tracking for sex offenders. Measom’s firm has installed a system in more than 600 schools nationwide that scans a visitor’s driver’s license and instantly matches it to the company’s state-by-state database of sex offenders.