New Technologies in Criminal Investigation

New Technologies in Criminal Investigation: Using GPS to go where police officers cannot go

The computer age has brought on a whole new set of criminals: Hackers, virus perpetrators, business secret pilferers, identity thieves and more. The computer age has also changed the way in which traditional crimes are perpetrated too. As we saw in the horrific terrorist attacks of September 11, the Al Queda henchmen stayed in contact with their shadowy bosses over email, and were well aware of planes' schedules and fuel capacities significantly ahead of time via usage of the wide variety of information sources on the Internet.

True, technology has changed the way we live our lives in many positive ways, but it has also enabled criminals to attack their work from entirely different and more potent angles. Fortunately, similar technological advances are also available to the criminal investigation elements of our society as well.

One such advance is the global positioning system. Known as GPS, this paper will explore how the technology is revolutionizing the way criminal investigators do business.

Keeping track of paroled criminals

The primary use of using GPS in criminal investigation work is to keep track of paroled criminals. Often, parole officers and other criminal investigators will use GPS systems in congruence with many other advances in technology, including voice recognition systems and systems designed to work with existing radio / cellular networks.

Criminal investigation experts feel that the GPS systems are the most effective. Not only can they inform authorities when parolees or criminals are not where they should be, but they can actually proactively inform the operators where the person is. These systems have been used by law enforcement agencies for some years and are starting to be planned for monitoring the elderly, mentally challenged, and children. The opponents of monitoring individuals worry about the methods used to fairly decide who will be tagged for monitoring, and the itinerant privacy issues (discussed below). The opponents claim the slippery slope argument: They predict that once it starts it will not stop until everyone is tagged and monitored using a GPS system.

In this age of the Patriot Act, GPS technologies -- and the resulting constitutional conflicts -- are even more at the forefront. How do we ensure that the devices are used only as they are supposed to be used? The argument harks back to the days of mafia-tracking using wire-taps. The police forces abused the wire tap technology to tap basically whomever they wanted to in several cases. Even recently, in a non-GPS issue, Atlantic City casino workers used security cameras not to watch potential cheaters or thieves, but to catch women in compromising situations.

The power of GPS in criminal investigations truly scares its opponents, the constitutional defenders. Our privacies are paramount in the Constitution, and if criminal investigators are to be able to use GPS technologies successfully, they must prove a) that they can be trusted with the technology, and b) that it does not significantly infringe on either the criminal's constitutional rights, or society's at large.

This is particularly true in the case of paroled criminals who are being tracked via GPS. Of course, they are required to stay within a certain geographic vicinity, but as we mentioned above, GPS systems inform operators not only when these criminals exceed their legal territory, but where exactly they are at all times. In other words, the GPS system delivers too much information. If indeed the systems are to pass constitutional muster, they must have "governors" of the sort that appear on Porsche automobiles: Porsches are fully capable of going more than 150 miles per hour, but several models have artificial governors on their speed to cap the automobiles at a lower pace. GPS systems provide too much information, and if criminal investigators are to use them, especially to track parolees, one possible solution is to actually dumb down the capabilities of the systems to only inform the operators when the parolees leave their assigned districts.

With such safeguards, parolees do not lose their constitutional rights to travel at will and with their constitutional privacies intact within the legal area; they are only sequestered to that area by the GPS.

Arguments in support of more prevalent GPS use, especially on paroles

Now that we have discussed some of the constitutional trouble-spots of GPS usage and the actual process of GPS investigation, why all the fuss? In other words, is GSP-tracking of criminals, parolees or otherwise, truly helpful?

The statistics demonstrate the most important reason to utilize GPS tracking systems: Nearly 30% of crimes are committed by released offenders. With GPS, there is much higher chance that criminal investigators would have know exactly where these criminals were -- or at least if and when they left their zones of permission -- and this would in turn help them stop the repeat offenders from committing further crimes, therefore reducing recidivism rates.

Florida-based Pro-Tech Monitoring ( http://www.ptm.com ) has developed one of the strongest GPS-based tracking systems. This system is called the SMART System and it combines Trimble's miniature Lassen-SK8 GPS board and cellular technology into a unit actually worn on the person by the criminal offender. Already, we can see the effectiveness of the methods: Rather than place the GPS device on the criminal's car, or other transportation method, the GPS is actually placed on the person of the offender. Of course, this begs the question: How do criminal investigators ensure that the criminal offenders -- parolees -- actually keep the devices on their persons? Are they actually implanted; and if so, is that not another constitutional privacy or cruel and unusual punishment challenge? Currently, the preferred method of attachment is an ankle bracelet which, of course, the criminal can remove if he or she decides to break his or her parole.

Regardless, in addition to the 3.5-ounce, tamper-proof ankle bracelet, the system includes a portable tracking device (PTD) that is electronically leashed to the original ankle unit. The PTD contains the GPS receiver and cellular communications as well, and all of these act in concert to track the offender and deliver constant streams of information back to the criminal investigators.

Unlike conventional house arrest systems that only monitor when offenders leave or return their homes, Pro-Tech Monitoring's SMART system keeps track of offenders anywhere, at all times. That is why police departments nationwide are researching purchases of this particular system. The unit is indeed "smart": it contains "rules of release" which stipulate where the offender should be at all times. If an offender breaks these rules of release, the system automatically warns the offender and then sends a message to a center that reports directly to the criminal investigators if the problem is not immediately corrected. We may think of it as a home security alarm system for the mobile criminal offender.

"The device is like a warden looking down on you to be sure that you comply," commented U.S. drug czar Bob Martinez in a recent Government Technology -- one of the most respected industry journals -- article.