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DUE TO THE NATURE of sex crimes and their impact, no other criminal population generates as much public trepidation as sex offenders. The extensive media coverage of sex crimes is highly influential in pubUc perception and legislative response. The media's interest regarding sex offenders may instill fears about pubUc safety and the potential for victimization. This "media hype" may also perpetuate misinformation about these offenses, who commits them, and who is most likely to be targeted (Proctor, Badzinski, & Johnson, 2002; Sample & Kadleck, 2008). This misinformation and the lack of details about sex offender management strategies can exacerbate the public's already legitimate concerns, leading to stricter measures for safeguarding people and their communities.
On average, on any given day, 200,000 sex offenders are under the control of correctional agencies in the United States, with 60 percent of these offenders supervised in the community (International Association of Chiefs of Police, "StrategicaUy Monitoring Sex Offenders"). Constitutional safeguards do not aUow continuous imprisonment after an individual has served their maximum sentence. Short of receiving a life sentence without the possibüity of parole, those incarcerated by our judicial system wiU eventuaUy re-enter society. Currently, global positioning system (GPS) technology is regularly used to monitor sex offenders in the community. This technology combines tracking, crime- mapping, and webbased data integration to provide information to the supervising officer about the location and movements of offenders.
There are two primary types of GPS technology commonly used to monitor sex offenders: passive and active GPS monitoring. Both technologies require offenders/defendants to wear a receiver/portable tracking device, usuaUy around their ankle; they also require use of a cellular telephone and computer software to review GPS data. Signals from global positioning sateUites create a map of offenders' movements. With passive GPS monitoring, the information is downloaded to a monitoring center and relayed to the supervising officer once or twice daily. This is commonly referred to as "after the fact reporting." In active GPS monitoring, the information coUected is transmitted every few minutes by ceUular telephone to a monitoring center and any violations are immediately reported to the officer. This method is the closest to "real-time monitoring."
It is important to understand the Umitations and the melding of the two technologies of GPS (which...