CLEARWATER, Fla. (WFLA) — On Tuesday St. Petersburg Chief of Police Anthony Holloway and Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri announced a new countywide initiative to reduce teen crime. The program is called called HOME – or Habitual Offender Monitoring Enforcement.
Teens with a minimum of five felony arrests, who are on probation, will be under intense surveillance by officers and crime analysts. Sheriff Gualtieri hopes tough talk and tough penalties will teach these child criminals a lesson.
“We aren’t playing. There are going to be consequences, and you need to be held accountable for your actions,” Gualtieri said.
According to the police department, a team of 16 officers and crime analysts from nine different agencies will provide intensive surveillance and monitoring of the county’s worst teen reoffenders. They will work from a daily list of around 175 teens.
“This program is not about kids that want to get back on track; this program is about saying game over to these kids who keep doing the same crimes and there are no consequences,” Police Chief Holloway said.
The juveniles will be tracked with ankle monitors. Officers making random and frequent check-ups to make sure these teens are where the GPS says they are.
“There will be about 175 kids right off the bat that are under sheriff’s office electronic monitoring and this is going to give us an opportunity to know where they are, to keep them from going where they shouldn’t go and make sure they abide by the rules of home detention because a lot of them aren’t. They keep coming back in the system and they are out committing those crimes,” Gualtieri said.
Nine different agencies will participate in the program, including the St. Petersburg Police Department, Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office, Clearwater Police Department, Pinellas Park Police Department, Tarpon Springs Police Department, Largo Police Department, Pinellas County Schools Police Department, Department of Juvenile Justice and the Pinellas/Pasco State Attorney’s Office.
