Budget Committee Rejects Plan To Track People On Restraining Orders With GPS

The Joint Finance Committee rejected a plan to spend $3 million to track people on domestic violence restraining orders using GPS technology.

Sen. Luther Olsen (R-Ripon) was among those who either questioned the cost of Governor Scott Walker’s plan or questioned how it would work.

“We think sometimes that GPS is the end-all, be-all, but the problem is it tracks people. So you know where that person is, but they can be pretty close to the person that they’re wanting to do harm to. We can see a track record of where they went, but I’m not so sure that law enforcement can respond fast enough.”

Lawmakers instead voted 15-1 to spend a little over a million dollars on grants for domestic violence prevention programs. They also set aside a quarter-million dollars in case counties want to try a pilot program for GPS tracking on their own.