Correctional Services to Review Electronic Monitoring Pilot Project

The Department of Correctional Services (DCS) is to undertake a review of the electronic monitoring pilot project, with a view to implementing the system as part of the correctional programme.
Electronic monitoring is a surveillance system, used by correctional services globally, to monitor the activities of convicted offenders, who have been granted conditional release from incarceration. The process involves attaching an anklet to the offender, whose movements are then observed from a central site.
Speaking at a demonstration of the system at the DCS’ head offices in Downtown Kingston on Thursday (Jan. 8), Acting Commissioner of Corrections, June Jarrett, informed that the two-year pilot project, which commenced in 2007, has ended, and the project will be evaluated with the aim of “perfecting it to move ahead.”
Cabinet approved the pilot project, for which a US$150,000 contract was awarded to United States-based firm, Dilieu Technology, to be the sole provider and implementer of the system.
“We have some policy decisions that must be taken before we start. We are awaiting our final report (on the project), after which we will go back to Cabinet,” the Acting Commissioner said during the demonstration, which was staged for a visiting government delegation from the Bahamas.
Jamaica’s Ministry of National Security had extended an invitation to the Bahamians to view a demonstration of the electronic monitoring system, which the Bahamas is in the process of implementing as a pilot project.
Mrs. Jarrett advised that six parishes were involved in the project, namely: Kingston, St. Andrew, Hanover, St. Elizabeth, Manchester, and Clarendon, with some 1,000 persons sensitised, and 40 additional persons trained as taggers, to monitor the activities of the volunteer offenders, who were fitted with the monitoring device.
The Acting Commissioner described electronic monitoring as an ideal tool in the rehabilitation of inmates. “We see this as a very good option, especially in terms of population reduction in the institutions, and. we have overcrowding in our major institutions. So, we welcome it,” Mrs. Jarrett stated.
Project Manager, Ira Porter, informed that under the project, a monitoring centre was established, equipped with computers and configured for monitoring the volunteers, and testing the tracking devices. She said that two rounds of training were conducted for probation aftercare officers, monitors, taggers, and trainers, while sensitisation sessions were held for some senior members of staff at the DCS’ head office.
“The first round was conducted by Dilieu Technology personnel, and the second by the Department of Correctional Services’ personnel. The first sets of volunteers were tagged (in) November 2008. (Some) 48 persons were tagged, covering most parishes, with tracking covering all parishes,” the Project Manager said, adding that the project has had “favourable success” in the tracking and tagging of the volunteers.
She said that surveys of the DCS’ staff, inmates, volunteers, and ex-offenders, to determine acceptance of electronic monitoring in the society, have been completed.
Bahamian National Security Minister, Tommy Turnquest, who headed the visiting delegation, said he was impressed with the project. He informed that his country has already passed legislation to implement the project as a pilot.
“We hope that by the first quarter of this year, we will be able to begin a pilot programme. Unlike what you do in Jamaica, our initial thinking, and that may change, is.that we are likely to have the police do the monitoring (as against the correctional services),” Mr. Turnquest informed.