N.Y. State Senator Proposes Using GPS Implants To Track Violent Convicts

It’s high-tech and certainly controversial, but with the two prisoners from the Clinton Correctional Facility still on the lam an upstate senator says one way to track future escapees is to microchip them.

Bloodhounds and expensive manhunts are so yesterday when it comes to hunting escaped prisoners. That’s the opinion of one lawmaker, who says the state should explore implanting tiny GPS devices under convicts’ skin.
Others say microchipping criminals could have multiple uses, CBS2’s Marcia Kramer reported Tuesday.

“If you’ve got convicted murderers, the type of people these two men are, that it would make some good sense at that level that we should have something that we could track them,” said State Sen. Kathy Marchione, R-Saratoga.

With 800 law enforcement officials still unable to pick up the trail of escaped murderers Richard Matt and David Sweat, the suggestion from Marchione to implant microchips in people convicted of serious crimes is picking up steam.

“I see the public safety value in it, not just from an escape standpoint but also from an inmate-control perspective within the institution,” said Jon Shane, a professor at John Jay College.

The New York Civil Liberties Union said microchipping inmates is unconstitutional.

“It sounds like a knee-jerk reaction. They should plug the security inside prisons,” said NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman. “As a constitutional matter, it won’t survive a challenge because it’s an invasion of body autonomy.”
Shane, a former cop, said it might pass constitutional muster if the chip was removed if and when a prisoner is released.

Experts say the chips would be embedded in the neck, underneath six or seven layers of skin. So simply cutting it out without medical assistance would pose a significant health risk.

Read more at CBS LOCAL.

{Matzav.com Newscenter}