Another brave new world innovation for dealing with sex offenders
A helpful student alerted me to this fascinating news coming from the great state of Ohio concerning sex offender management. (Technocorrection fans might want to be sitting down when reading this.) Here are the basics:
State Sen. Tim Grendell of Chester Township, a vocal supporter of various measures aimed at getting tougher on crime, says he is excited about a Geauga County company’s proposal “to take real-time monitoring of sex offenders to a new level.” He has invited the company to make a presentation Wednesday to a Senate subcommittee on a device it is developing and seeking to patent called “Offendar,” short for offender radar.
Offendar LLC is marketing it as a “personal threat detection system featuring a key-fob sized electronic device.” The device would give the person carrying it “a vibrating, auditory or visual alarm when a sex offender or other person wearing a court-ordered electronic ankle bracelet is in the immediate vicinity.” Why is the company proposing it? “The public wants more than after-the-fact tracking of sex offenders. Many people want to know when a threat is in the vicinity so they can take steps to protect themselves and their children before something happens,” according to the company’s presentation….
Grendell seems to have no reservations about the company’s proposal. “In seeing their idea and understanding how it can enhance what Ohio is already doing, I was very impressed,” he said in a memo Monday to fellow lawmakers and the media.
As of this writing, I cannot yet find a website for “Offendar LLC.” I’m not sure I would be “very impressed” by a company marketing a new high-tech device that does not even have a company website. But maybe Offendar LLC has just been spending all its R&D time on its Offendar device.
UPDATE: Sorry for the snark, Offendar LLC, since now I see the company does that this website at offendar.com.
As regular readers know, I think lots of important technocorrection innovations are inevitable (and will raise all sort of new legal issues), in part because private industry will be devising and marketing new ways to achieve public safety. The work of Offendar LLC, and its ability to quickly get the attention of a prominent state Senator, confirms my views.
Some related posts on sex offender GPS tracking: