If the bill makes it out of the state senate and is endorsed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, high-risk sex criminals deemed likely to strike again would be tracked by global positioning satellite (GPS) while on parole or probation.

"This technology should have been in use years ago," said the bill's author, Democratic state senator Jackie Speier of San Francisco.

"GPS can save lives and millions of dollars every year by deterring new criminal behavior by sexual predators. But first, high-risk offenders -- those most likely to commit new crimes -- must be required to wear it."

A companion bill introduced by another elected state leader would increase the amount of time convicted sex criminals spend on probation or parole.

That bill also had its initial hearing in the senate committee on Wednesday, said Speier spokeswoman Tracy Fairchild.

There are 9,000 "sexual predators" on parole in California and 27,000 more in prisons in the state, according to Speier's office.

Statistics showed that 70 percent of the felons released from prison wind up back in custody within three years.

The US state of Florida cut the recidivism rate of released violent sex criminals by half since it began using GPS technology to monitor them in 2000, according to the California bill's backers.

It would cost approximately 10 dollars (US) a day to track an ex-convict by means of a GPS anklet, Speier's estimated.

If California was as successful as Florida in cutting sex crime recidivism, it could save more than a billion dollars annually in law enforcement and prison expenses, according to the senator's office.

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