An unexpected discovery happened to Mike Sibbett as he stepped into retirement last fall after serving 12 years as chairman of the state Board of Pardons.

During all that time he had one constant worry when deciding whether to keep convicts in prison.

"You want to give people a chance without jeopardizing the community," he said. "That's the question that keeps you up nights."

Then, only months after he stopped asking the question, he was introduced to what he sees as the answer.

It's called TrackerPal, a parolee monitoring device developed by a Sandy technology firm called SecureAlert.

TrackerPal is a battery-powered ankle bracelet with pinpoint GPS positioning and a built-in cell phone that is in 24/7 contact with a monitoring center.

Wear one of these and you're never alone.

If the battery is getting too low, the monitoring center will call with a reminder to either recharge it immediately or prepare to be visited by your case agent who by the way knows exactly where you are.

If you try to shoot it off, saw it off, burn it off or cut it off, a 95-decibel alarm will sound about the same time you realize it's virtually impossible to penetrate the reinforced steel cable.

If you try to turn off the cell phone, you can't, and it's a speaker phone, which means anyone in the vicinity will hear the agent when he announces, "you are a sex offender and need to leave the park immediately."

TrackerPal is OnStar with a conscience.

"It's Orwellian, it's a virtual prison," said Sibbett. "It's what the criminal justice system has been looking for for years — and it took a medical company to put it together."

SecureAlert, founded by Jim Dalton and David Derrick, started in business in 1997 specializing in electronic monitors for the elderly.

In 2005 the company figured out how to install a tamper proof cell phone in its monitors, paving the way for a patent that led to TrackerPal.

"This is not your Martha Stewart tracker," said Sibbett. "All that told them was if she was in her house or if she left. This tells you where someone is right now."

"There are over 500,000 sex offenders under supervision right now in America alone," said Sibbett. "This is a way of tracking all of them."

Not to mention gangbangers, domestic violence offenders, drug addicts and so forth.

And at about $8 a day, the cost is considerably less than the $65 it takes to house an inmate in prison.

"I wasn't looking to do anything in the criminal justice field when I retired," said Sibbett, who was on his way to fixing up the family ranch when SecureAlert contacted him about being a consultant. "But then I realized this is what I was always looking for when I was chairman."

Since January, he's traveled the country touting TrackerPal. Pennsylvania is already using about 100 units, and a number of pilot programs are about to begin, including one by the Utah Department of Corrections.

"Every judge, every parole board, every case officer I've visited, they're all saying, 'What do I have to do to get this?' " said Sibbett. "They realize this is it, this is the next step."

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Lee Benson's column runs Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com and faxes to 801-237-2527.