Tracking Bracelet
Steve Gunderson of Starlite Bail Bonds demonstrates an ankle bracelet that can track the wearer’s every move.
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GPS allows tracking of lawbreakers
by Brent Shrum, Kootenai Valley Record
January 31, 2008
A state of the art tracking system being put into use by the local court system is allowing a lawbreaker’s every move to be monitored in real time.
The system features an ankle bracelet that combines GPS (global positioning system) and cell phone technology. Monitoring is conducted in Utah by the firm that provides the device, with information relayed to local provider Starlite Bail Bonds. If a person wearing the bracelet goes somewhere he or she isn’t supposed to go – whether it’s into a bar or out of the county – Starlite is notified, and the company can then contact law enforcement officers as necessary, said Starlite’s Steve Gunderson.
The device has already been used several times since Starlite started offering the service earlier this month, Gunderson said.
“So far we’ve found that it’s working like clockwork,” he said.
Justice of the Peace Gary Hicks said he used the system in the sentencing of a man whose crime was alcohol-related. The sentence requires the defendant to stay out of places where alcohol is served for 30 days.
“They’re going to be able to tell me every place he goes during that 30 days, because he’s GPS tracked,” Hicks said. “The information is extensive.”
The tracking device can also be used for a “house arrest” scenario to limit an offender’s freedom without putting the person in jail at a cost of $75 per day to the taxpayers, Hicks said. Instead, the offender is responsible for paying $16.50 per day plus $50 fees for installation and removal.
“It gives us a viable alternative to incarceration where the cost is actually placed on the perpetrator rather than on the community,” Hicks said.
Through a built-in cell phone system, the bracelet also allows for two-way voice communication between the person monitoring the device and the person wearing it, Gunderson added.
Starlite is also providing an ignition interlock system for use in cases where a person has been convicted of driving under the influence of alcohol. The system requires the driver to blow into a device that measures blood alcohol content before starting the vehicle and at intervals while driving. If the machine detects alcohol at a level well below the legal limit for DUI, the vehicle is rendered inoperable.
The interlock system is required by state law for second-offense DUIs, but until now no provider of the service has been available locally, said Lincoln County Attorney Bernie Cassidy.
“This is technology that now allows us to do what the state has mandated for some time,” Cassidy said.
The interlock system is still being tested and is expected to go into service next month, Gunderson said.
“We want things to work flawlessly and with zero problems,” he said.
Starlite is the sole distributor in Montana and one of 48 in the nation for this particular interlock system, Gunderson said. The system was chosen after six months of research, he said, “and I think we found the best of the best.”
In the future, Starlite will be adding a new feature to the tracking system that is designed to keep an offender away from a victim. The victim will have a second device that will set off an alarm if the offender comes within a certain distance.
Another technology that may be added in the future allows alcohol or drugs in the bloodstream to be monitored through the skin by a bracelet.
Hicks called the new technologies as “a tremendous aid to the community.”
“I see this as a way to help people who have an addiction or have a problem and help the county defray the cost of monitoring these people,” he said.
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Editor’s Note: See the January 28, 2008 edition of the Kootenai Valley Record for the printed version of this story. The Kootenai Valley Record publishes once a week, on Monday, in Libby, Montana. They are a locally owned community newspaper, located at 403 Mineral Avenue in Libby. For in-county and out-of-county subscription information, call 406-293-2424, or e-mail kvrecord@gmail.com.
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