(Photo via Twitter)
Under a new law signed by Mayor Muriel Bowser, all those on supervised release who tamper with GPS devices can be punished with up to six months in jail.
The legislation closes a loophole that was left open for two years after a court ruled that offenders could only be punished if they had been ordered to wear a GPS device by the U.S. Parole Commission or a judge. Now any agency—including the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency, the Pretrial Services Agency, and the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services—that mandate a person to wear a GPS monitoring device can enforce the order.
“Electronic monitoring devices serve as a significant tool in monitoring offender compliance and are very important to public safety,” Bowser said at a press conference this morning, adding that the new law “creates an opportunity and an important deterrent and ensures that offenders who tamper with these devices will be held accountable.”
The loophole came to public attention in a Washington Post series on repeat offenders, including a man who committed a brutal rape in Capitol Hill days after cutting off his GPS monitoring bracelet.
It doesn’t address cases where offenders were ordered to wear a GPS bracelet but don’t return to the courthouse to get it fitted, such as the man charged in the death of local actress and yoga teacher Trisha McCauley.
Bowser said her office is working to make “space and time available in our jail for the supervising agencies to have their staff available to put on GPS monitoring devices.”
Rachel Sadon