About 40 high risk sex offenders paroled in Kern County are now under constant, high-tech supervision. California Department of Corrections parole agents are using global positioning satellite technology to monitor these parolees.

Eyewitness News started investigating supervision of high risk sex offenders on parole after Darren Kawamoto was going to be located in Kern County in 2004. At that time, state prisons offiicals had just started a GPS pilot project.

The project is now running in Kern County, and Eyewitness News has learned at least a couple of these offenders have been returned to prison because parole violations were spotted using the GPS program.

/\gent Kelly Mason says he noticed something suspicious by one of his offenders on the program. "he had a pattern, on Tuesday nights he went to a particular residence," says Mason.

"The second time I saw that, I went to the residence and discovered that children resided at that residence." The offender's conditions of parole said he could not be around children. He was returned to prison.

With the GPS program, every movement of the offender is tracked through a computer. The parolees wear an ankle device that gives off signals which are tracked by satellites and sent to a computer system.

Agents log on to the computer system, "They can see where the offender went the prior day, the prior week, or prior month -- or even at that moment," says Agent Derrick Carraway.

The program can set up "exclusion zones" where an offender is not supposed to go -- based on the conditions of his parole. "We've had offenders who have gone to parks, colleges, they also went to different elementary schools -- places where they should not be," says Carraway.

The tracking is so precise, the agents know exactly where the offender has been, for how long, and at what time.

Bakersfield parole agent Steve Struwe says computer tracking is a valuable tool to prove violations. "There's no doubt about where they've been, or time they were there."

One of his parolees was sent back to prison when the program showed he had violated his parole curfew.

One of the offenders who's on the GPS system in Kern County says he actually agrees with the program, "I don't have a problem with it. It's just ordered as part of my sentence."

This parolee didn't want his name used. The man said he'd served a 12-year prison term, and was paroled six months ago. Each parolee on the system wears a grey bracelet-like device on his ankle at all times.

"It is a nuisance," the offender told Eyewitness News. That parolee says he doesn't want anyone to notice he has the device on his ankle, he makes sure his sock covers it.

The system can also be programmed to alert if it detects that an offender has entered an "exclusion zone." Agents can be called immediately and system can be programmed to contact the offender.

"The agent can let the offender know, if the GPS device vibrates or pings -- give me a call immediately," says Carraway.

Statewide the prisons department now has more than 500 high risk sex offenders on the GPS program. They have returned 105 offenders to prison for parole violations that were detected by the program.

The prisons department hopes to eventually get all high risk sex offender parolees into the GPS program. Agents say it's one more valuable tool to monitor these offenders.

"While the person is out there -- the sex offender is on the street -- we don't want any more victims." says agent Carraway. "If we can do that by utilizing all the tools that we have, including GPS -- then we're doing our job."