Committee OKs bill allowing GPS tracking of sex offenders

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Rob Briley, D-Nashville, would allow the Tennessee Board of Probation and Parole to track offenders once they’re released from prison.

Offenders would wear a bracelet that is tied in with a GPS system so that parole or probation officers could know where the former inmates are at any given time and where they’ve been.

The system could include an “exclusion zone” — like a playground or school — where a child sex abuser is expressly prohibited from loitering. Law enforcement officers would be alerted if an offender enters that area.

The $5 million cost of the system would be borne by the sex offenders based upon their ability to pay.

Briley called such a system “the wave of the future” and said it could be expanded to apply to other former inmates who are at high risk of committing another crime.

The bill was approved on a voice vote by the House Judiciary Committee.
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On the ‘Net:
Read HB3182/SB3159 at http://www.legislature.state.tn.us