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Abstract
The supervision and monitoring of sex offenders has been one of the most hotly contested areas in corrections policy in recent years. The public has called for greater levels of offender scrutiny as the result of heinous acts perpetrated by sex offenders, while critics point to recent legislation with onerous housing restrictions coupled with public censure that prevent many offenders from reentering successfully into society. The current study provides a test of the effectiveness of GPS monitoring for high risk sex offender parolees over and above surveillance and monitoring provided by specialized sex offender caseloads. Using data from a GPS pilot program, 94 high risk sex offenders monitored by GPS and 91 high risk sex offenders on specialized caseloads were followed for 12 months. GPS sex offenders were less likely to be found guilty of failing to register as non-GPS sex offenders and marginally less likely to abscond– reflecting relative success in meeting two goals of sex offender legislation- knowing where sex offenders are and making sure they are registered. Additionally, GPS offenders were less likely to be found guilty of committing a new criminal violation; however we observed no significant differences in the type of new crime violation.
Notes
1. Under California’s sex offender registration law, Penal Code 290, offenders are required to register for a variety of offenses, including sexual assaults, molestations, exposure crimes, kidnappings, and some statutory rapes.
2. Study participants assigned the highest-risk scores were young, had multiple prior sexual convictions, and targeted boys for molestation.
3. Law enforcement can establish inclusion and exclusion zones, further restricting the movements of offenders. An exclusion zone is a prohibited area, such as a school or playground, whereas an inclusion zone is an acceptable area, such as an employment site or treatment center (DeMichele & Payne, Citation2009; International Association of Chiefs of Police, Citation2008).
4. The recent evaluation by Gies et al. (Citation2012) compared HRSO with GPS in California with routine parole supervision for HRSO in California. There are important differences between their study design and ours (time frame, geography, matching that eliminated some GPS parolees), the most important of which is the composition of the comparison group. Our study explicitly compares the differences between two intensive caseloads; the Gies et al. study compares GPS with routine supervision parole, with statistical controls for caseload size.
5. Numbers provided to authors by the Division of Adult Parole Operations.
6. HRSO were placed on specialized caseloads in San Diego; not all HRSO across the state were placed on these special caseloads at the time of our study.
7. The four GPS caseloads were managed by four agents; however, there was some turnover during the study period such that the same four agents were not managing the GPS caseloads throughout the pilot.
8. The Static-99 is a ten-item risk assessment instrument developed specifically to assess the risk level of sex offenders. See Harris, Phenix, Hanson, and Thornton (Citation2003) and Hanson and Thornton (Citation1999) for a description of the instrument and information regarding its validation.
9. A total of 14 additional parolees were placed onto GPS units during the study period.
10. Tracking units monitor the strap to make sure wearers don’t attempt to remove the unit. The GPS application allows the supervising agent to define exclusion zones, areas the parolee is forbidden to enter, and puts out an alert if it is violated. Supervisors can also designate inclusion zones, such as a workplace or residence, and the hours when a parolee must be within the area.
11. Study staff were trained in scoring the Static-99 and calculated the scores when they were not included in the parolee file.
12. The monthly rate of contacts was computed as the total number of contacts for each parolee divided by the number of days during the six-month follow-up when he/she was either on GPS or comparison status.
13. Attempted contacts refer to unsuccessful agent-initiated contacts. Case reviews were periodic sessions to formally reevaluate a case, progress, or level of supervision, among other things. Residence or office indicates where the contact took place, whereas face-to-face contacts draw from any setting in which the parole agent and offender would have met in person, such as the offender’s residence, the parole agent’s office, parolee’s place of employment, jail, or during a drug testing appointment. The other category consisted of a number of miscellaneous contacts, such as an agent visiting a parolee following a treatment session or any other meeting that might have taken place at an alternative location.
14. Analyses of filed violations, not reported here, showed the same pattern of between-group differences as the analysis of violations in .
15. These differences may be partially explained by our shorter follow-up time of 12 months, but this is somewhat mitigated by the tendency of most recidivism to occur within 12 months of release.