Officials Lose Track Of 16,000 Sex Offenders In Nationwide Electronic Monitoring Failure

MADISON, Wis. -- A company that provides electronic monitoring to track sex offenders, parolees and others said its system shut down after unexpectedly hitting its data storage limit, leaving authorities across 49 states unaware of offenders' movement for about 12 hours.

Prisons and other corrections agencies were blocked from getting notifications on about 16,000 people being tracked, BI Incorporated spokesman Jock Waldo said Wednesday. The system operated by the Boulder, Colo.-based company reached its data threshold -- more than 2 billion records -- Tuesday morning.

Tracking devices continued to record movement Tuesday, but corrections agencies couldn't immediately view the data. The company has substantially increased its data storage capacity and hasn't heard of any safety issues, Waldo said. People being monitored were unaware of any problems.

"In retrospect, we should have been able to catch this," Waldo said.

BI contracts with about 900 government agencies across the country for monitoring and notification services, including real-time monitoring and delayed notifications about offender whereabouts. The agencies vary widely, and include state prison systems, sheriff's departments and pre-trial service entities, Waldo said.

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