A registered sex offender in Hamilton County recently allowed the battery to die on the ankle bracelet used to monitor his whereabouts and moved from his registered address.
Damen Martin was arrested shortly after the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office sex offender registry division sought help, in part because monitoring authorities in Nashville knew immediately when Mr. Martin’s ankle bracelet went offline.
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GPS FACTS
* Allows officers to review offender movement patterns for unusual activity.
* Determines offender location in almost real time.
* Alerts authorities when specific activities do or do not occur.
* Verifies the offender is abiding by curfews, reporting to work and attending treatment.
* Shows an offender was present at a particular criminal event.
* Depends on the offender following procedure — carrying properly, charging unit on time, etc.
* Triggers an alert when offenders remove the devices, but will show only where they were when they removed them.
* Transmission of tracking data can be affected by cellular dead zones.
* Cannot track all areas, including inside some buildings.
Source: Tennessee Board of Probation and Parole
He was booked on a charge of violating the sex offender registry, and his case was bound over to Hamilton County Criminal Court, where no court date was available, according to court records.
Mr. Martin remains in the parole tracker program.
Mr. Martin, who also was not living at his listed address of 2153 Camden St., is one of 350 registered sex offenders on probation and monitored by the Tennessee Board of Probation and Parole. The board monitors about 2,400 sex offenders and places global positioning satellite tracker devices on those determined to be high risk or convicted of raping a child, said Melissa McDonald, board spokeswoman.
The ankle bracelets are monitored 24 hours a day at a center in Nashville. Offenders receive specific instructions about use of the bracelet, such as recharging the battery regularly.
When the center receives an alert that something unusual occurred with a bracelet, employees try to call the offender at home to verify the problem.
Usually the offender forgets to push the battery in far enough or is in a cellular dead zone and the problem is solved, said Kirk Smith, assistant director of field services, who oversees the GPS program.
“It’s not very often (that happens) because, for the most part, offenders want to comply with their terms of supervision, and they get pages and phone calls and things from the officers,” Ms. Smith said. “Usually they are very compliant.”
If offenders cannot be reached, their parole officer is notified and may try to contact them.
Because the program still is relatively new — the department began using the trackers in 2005 during a pilot program and introduced them statewide last year — statistics on the number of offenders who go missing is unavailable, Ms. McDonald said.
The GPS product manufacturer, iSECUREtrac based in Omaha, Neb., also does not have statistics on the number of offenders who disable devices. But the product has multiple circumvention prevention measures, including fiber optics that cannot be stretched and a battery life of 24 hours, said Daryl Decker, senior account executive for iSECUREtrac.
“If they crack the case, if they try and get into the case or the cuff, it will send an alert to the supervising officer to let them know,” he said.
Detective Jimmy Clift, who oversees the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office sex offender registry division, said he can’t remember anyone other than Mr. Martin disabling his device.
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