Time to use GPS to keep track of city’s high-risk sex offenders
When predators go missing, as three have in May, public is needlessly endangered
There are 45 high-risk sex offenders living in the city of Vancouver who are supposed to be monitored and tracked by police so they don’t prey on the public again.
But, incredibly, not a single one of these sexual predators is tracked using GPS technology, even though it’s a corrections system used in other parts of Canada.
In this month alone, three of Vancouver’s high-risk sex offenders went missing, leaving police with no option but to plead with the public for help to find them.
The cops caught one within a few days. But, at press time, two high-risk sex offenders were still on the loose: Timothy Daniel Jones and Gerald Richard McLean.
Jones, 48, has three prior convictions for sexual assault against teenage and adult women and “is considered a high risk to reoffend,” the Vancouver Police said in a statement. He failed to return to his halfway house on May 11.
McLean, 46, has been on the run even longer. He bolted from his halfway house on May 7. McLean was convicted of sexually assaulting a teenager in 1995 and a child in 2000.
Both men are considered dangerous and police are pleading with the public to phone 911 immediately if they’re spotted.
Let’s leave aside the question of why these two offenders were let out of jail to begin with. For now, let’s talk about the ridiculously outdated methods used to track and monitor their movements.
Neither of these two at-large sex offenders was the subject of any kind of electronic monitoring.
In fact, “very few, if any” of the 45 high-risk sex offenders living in the city are electronically monitored, said Const. Brian Montague of the Vancouver Police Department.
Instead, police use “physical checks” to keep tabs on the offenders, he said.
That includes phone calls to halfway houses, curfew checks and sometimes multiple daily check-ins with police officers.
“It’s extremely difficult for us,” Montague said, noting it’s the courts and corrections officials, not the cops, who make the rules.
“With resources and priorities, we are challenged to monitor that large number.”
In the few instances where electronic monitoring is used, British Columbia uses outdated and extremely limited radio-frequency ankle bracelets.
The bracelets work only in the confines of an offender’s home by communicating with a landline telephone and do not track wider movements by satellite like a Global Positioning System (GPS) can.
Critics say the time has come for all high-risk sex offenders in B.C. to be tracked with GPSenabled bracelets.
“Repeat sex offenders, predatory high-risk sex offenders, should be monitored 24 hours a day so police know exactly where they are at all times,” said NDP justice critic Mike Farnworth.
“There’s absolutely no excuse for not using this technology when it’s now so commonplace and proven effective.
“People will put a microchip in their dog to find them if they’re lost or stolen. They have GPS in their cars so police can pinpoint the location of that car in an accident.
“But we’re letting high-risk sexual predators wander around with no tracking at all. It’s not acceptable.”
GPS tracking of offenders is currently used in Alberta and Nova Scotia. Corrections Canada is rolling out a GPS-tracking pilot project for federal offenders across the country, starting in Ontario and scheduled to be tested later in British Columbia.
The B.C. government, meanwhile, admits the limited-range radio-frequency system used by B.C. Corrections is out of date and plans are in the works for a new GPS system.
But Farnworth points out that the government has been sitting on a report for months that details problems with the current system.
“That report should be released immediately so the public knows exactly what the gaps and risks are,” he said. “There have been terrible tragedies in this province when it comes to high-risk sex offenders.”
The body of 17-year-old Surrey high-school student Serena Vermeersch was found dumped near railroad tracks last Sept. 16.
A high-risk sex offender, Raymond Lee Caissie, has been charged with the teen’s murder. Caissie was released from prison last year after serving 22 years in jail for a violent sexual assault.
Could a GPS tracking system have prevented that slaying or any other heinous crime? It’s impossible to say, of course, since any determined offender can find a way to remove or disable an ankle bracelet.
“Even a kryptonite lock can be cut off with the right equipment,” said Montague, the Vancouver police officer. “But, if removed, it would also send out a signal alerting police.”
Montague also points out that a GPS system could replace those “physical checks” police are required to do on high-risk offenders now.
“It has the potential to reduce that workload, freeing up our investigators to do other tasks,” he said.
A GPS system could also provide police with real-time tracking data, instantly showing if a sex offender has breached release conditions — like going near a school.
Attorney-General Suzanne Anton said the government realizes the system needs to be updated.
“In terms of the electronic monitoring, we are going out for a new service provider,” Anton said. “It will have GPS features that will enable the system to know where people are.”
She acknowledged the government ordered an outside report on the current monitoring system and she received the report in December. But she refused to release it until a new contractor is in place, adding the report will first be reviewed by government censors “for safety and security reasons.” That angers Farnworth, the NDP critic. “The public has a right to know what’s in that report now. Then we should go out and immediately get the best technology available.”
In the meantime, dozens of high-risk sex offenders will continue to be monitored by an inadequate system that exposes the public to needless risk.