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The measure, which now goes to the state Senate, would allow judges to order stalkers convicted of a second or subsequent offense against the same victim to be fitted with a GPS device so police can track the stalker’s movements.
“This bill provides law enforcement with an ideal method of using the available technology to track people who are obsessed with intimidating and harming other individuals and preventing them from getting near their victims,” said Betty Lou DeCroce (R-Morris Essex, Passaic), one of the primary sponsors.
“There are too many cases in which people — particularly women — are being psychologically and in many cases, physically abused by stalkers. We have the tools at our disposal to protect people by forcing convicted stalkers to wear a surveillance device so I see no reason not to do it,” DeCroce added.
The bill would require the Director of the Administrative Office of the Courts, Attorney General, Superintendent of State Police and county and municipal law enforcement agencies to share criminal incident information with each other and the vendor selected by the director to provide the monitoring equipment for the program.
The person being monitored would have to foot the bill.
It wold also be a third-degree crime, punishable by three to five years in prison, to tamper with, remove or vandalize a monitoring device.
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