Two studies on tracking prisoners have met with success and the security measure should be more widely employed in the country's prisons, says the Department of Correctional Services (DCS).
One scheme electronically traced awaiting trial detainees in two prisons, while the second piloted electronic monitoring for parolees and prisoners under "correctional supervision".
DCS IT deputy commissioner Jack Shilubane says electronic monitoring can also reduce corruption in the department and the intimidation of prison officials.
He says the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research has been asked to help the department to draft a budget for the further deployment of parolee monitoring by June, so that it can be included in National Treasury's medium-term expenditure framework.
Shilubane says the scheme has been in the pipeline for eight years, but has been stymied because "areas potentially covered by electronic monitoring could not match the offender population. The study 'on the available technology at the time' [2004] showed that electronic monitoring was only effective in 26% of urban areas and 19% of rural areas... due to reliance on electricity and telephone lines."
The greater availability and relatively lower cost of global positioning technology and the "Global System for Mobile Communications" has, however, convinced prison authorities to have another stab at outside monitoring.
He says the technology is "fairly accurate" and the devices are "generally tamper-proof".
On the inside
Meanwhile, the department is pleased with the result of an R28 million tracking project inside the Durban Westville Medium A prison and Johannesburg Medium A.
The "Inmate Tracking System" (ITS) was sponsored by the Integrated Justice System Cluster of Cabinet and includes a biometric identification and verification system. Prisoners have, in the past, denied their identities or assumed that of others in order to escape justice - and imprisonment.
Shilubane says ITS has proved itself to be of "great value". He adds that an evaluation committee concluded the system was sustainable. However, the personal tracking devices tested were deemed to be "non-durable" and, therefore, "inefficient".
In a related development, the Durban area commissioner has been dismissed for a lack of cooperation in investigating the loss of several thousand of the devices. Shilubane could recently not tell Parliament what their value was, with the vendor saying the loss was R7 million and the department saying it was R2.7 million.
Prisons portfolio committee chairman Dennis Bloem has "demanded a full report with correct facts and an indication why the department's figures were different, as well as accountability," the Parliamentary Monitoring Group (PMG) reported of the meeting concerned.
About 1 500 devices, valued at R1.5 million, have apparently been recovered "but the details were not known," the PMG observed.
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