California probation officers overwhelmed with GPS monitoring alerts

Electronic monitoring was supposed to help Los Angeles County deal with the influx of thousands of felons moved out of California's prison system to ease overcrowding.

The nation's largest probation department strapped GPS ankle monitors on the highest-risk of those convicts, expecting the satellite receivers to keep tabs on where they spent their days and nights, and therefore keep the public safe. Instead, agents are drowning in a flood of meaningless data, masking alarms that could signal real danger.