Heather Hogan
The Department of Correctional Services plans to ease the overcrowding of prisons and cut costs by releasing 10 000 prisoners tagged with electronic bracelets. The first phase of releases will begin next year.
Prisoners will be free to move around during their working hours, but will be under house arrest at other times. They will be allowed visitors.
Bail applicants, juveniles and prisoners due for parole will be eligible for the system. While some of the project planners feel only non-violent prisoners should be released on electronic monitoring, others feel those guilty of violent crimes should qualify if their parole applications are successful.
The tracking gadget consists of a black plastic anklet or bracelet with an electronic device which transmits the prisoner’s number to a control centre.
Correctional services bought the basic equipment for a pilot project from a United States company. During the one-year project, which ended in September 1997, 344 male prisoners due for parole and 15 people out on bail were placed on electronic monitoring. There were only a few problems – some prisoners cut off their bracelets and one man was rearrested.
There are two ways for authorities to check on electronically monitored prisoners. The first uses a field monitoring device plugged into an electricity supply and connected to the phone. A set area is programmed into the device and the prisoner may not move out of this area after a curfew. The extent of the area depends on the space available at home. For example, a flat would have a setting of an 11m radius, a house 23m and a farm 46m.
Computers phone the device at regular intervals. The bracelets send signals to the device which are relayed via the phone lines to the computer. The prisoners pay for all phone calls to and from the device.
The second, more primitive option is used in areas without phones or electricity. A police officer has to drive past the prisoner’s home with a hand-held gadget which picks up the signals.
Officials claim information stored on these computers is tamper-proof as even monitors operating the system do not know the relevant codes to change the data. All information gained through electronic monitoring can be used as evidence in court.
Although the bracelets are made of plastic, they are tough. One prisoner in the pilot project tried to smash his with a brick, but the tracking device survived. The strap on the device is rubber and has a sensitive cord running through it. If the cord is severed, a breach is registered on the computer.
The black boxes are also tamper-proof – as soon as they are opened a light sensor notifies the computer. In case of a power failure, the box has a 72-hour back-up battery inside.
The main flaw in the system is that it can only monitor prisoners while they are in their designated area. The minute they leave their home, they are not monitored and could be anywhere doing anything.
But the department points out that the system is mainly to rehabilitate criminals and reintegrate them back into society.
In the US, prisoners are monitored via satellite and their movements can be traced no matter where they go.
Other electronic monitoring programmes are available, with maps for tracking and gadgets for prisoners to blow into to show if they have been drinking or doing drugs. These are available to South Africa and would be more effective, but would cost more.
A major advantage of the electronic monitoring system is that one person can monitor 400 prisoners in an eight-hour shift. At present one parole officer can check on only 60 prisoners.
Currently it costs R80 a day to keep a prisoner in jail. Electronic monitoring would bring the cost down to R18 a day.
Electronic monitoring is particularly effective in keeping track of awaiting- trial prisoners out on bail.
Another aim of the system is to give parole officers more time to spend with parole prisoners, in the role of a social worker.
“Prisoners couldn’t even bribe officials to tamper with their records under this system as they would have to bribe 15 to 20 people,” said Carl Liebenberg, an electronic monitoring official. “I attached [a bracelet] to myself … to see if I could beat it – I couldn’t. This is a very good, very effective project.”