By Erin Alberty
The Salt Lake Tribune
SALT LAKE COUNTY — Salt Lake County sheriff’s deputies are auditioning electronic ankle monitors that can track a criminal’s every move 24 hours a day.
Unlike the department’s existing radio-signal ankle monitors, which indicate only whether offenders are at home during required hours, the new monitors use global positioning technology to show where offenders are traveling when they leave home, Sheriff Jim Winder announced Monday.
About 90 jail inmates presently are released wearing the ankle monitors, said Sgt. Russ Young. They include offenders convicted of drug, fraud and forgery charges, Young said.
Officers began using the new devices on some offenders this week and will continue distributing them a few at a time during a six-month trial. The 50 monitors cost $6.90 per device per day, as opposed to the $1.59 daily fee the county pays for its current supply of 120 radio-signal monitors. The department is contracting with Atlanta-based Omnilink Systems.
Because the GPS monitors transmit signals 24 hours a day, deputies will be alerted immediately when offenders try to disable them, Young said. The existing units only signal tampering during the hours when the offender is supposed to be at home, he said. That means an offender can remove or break the monitor at the beginning of, say, a work shift, and would have several hours to escape.
There are now three county inmates who have escaped their monitors, Young said. That amounts to a rate of fewer than 1 percent.
After the trial, deputies will decide whether to purchase 500 monitor units.
Copyright 2007 The Salt Lake Tribune