Seriously...GPS

A recent article read in the New York Times explained the rational of certain states increasing usage of GPS devices to track domestic violence abusers and stalkers. According to the article, research suggests that GPS devices help to enforce restraining orders making them "more than just a piece of paper" by allowing law enforcement to see exactly where the abusers/stalkers are at all times and to respond quickly if they are in violation.

This is absurd. Ok, I get that now you can see if they have violated the order by getting too close to the person who they are restrained from. This would be very useful only in validating/proving how many times they broke the violation, but does nothing to PREVENT the violation. Obviously, these people have no respect, well for anyone, but even more so, not for authority. People who respect authority/laws wouldn't violate a restraining order, and better yet, probably wouldn't be abusive or stalk someone to begin with because, well it's wrong. On average it takes police 3-8 minutes to respond to an emergency call. That's a long time when you are being attacked, harrassed, having your tires slashed etc. GPS monitoring does nothing more than provide and increased sense of false security to the vicitms and to law enforcement.

The truth is, we need more strict laws for abusers and more domestic violence prevention programs for people at high risk. Too many times these people get away with a very serious/dangerous crime with little more than a slap on the hand, a few fines and apparently now a nifty GPS system so that the police can tell exactly where the crime occurred.