Hi-tech tags to keep thugs at bay

In a move to improve monitoring of people on parole, select victims of crime are to be given devices that will inform them if perpetrators try to reach them.

The plan is one of a series of strict measures to be implemented by the Department of Correctional Services to keep an eye on parolees.

The department is to expand its electronic monitoring system, involving 24-hour surveillance of some parolees, and introduce a device that can determine whether a parolee has been drinking alcohol.

Azwihangwisi Nesengani, the department's acting deputy commissioner of social integration, said 157 parolees around the country were currently fitted with electronic monitoring tags.

The plan was to increase the number to 1000 by March.

"We're familiarising [department officials] with what they need to know and how to operate it [the system]," said Nesengani.

Electronic monitoring would help cut costs as an incarcerated offender cost the department R327 a day, while an electronically monitored parolee cost R197 a day.

The ankle- or wrist-fitted tags - piloted in Western Cape in March - were virtually tamper-proof, Nesengani said.

Only certain Correctional Services staff can unlock the tags, which are linked to a control room in Pretoria, where screens showing a parolee's movements are constantly monitored.

If a parolee moves into an area they are not supposed to be in - as stipulated in their release conditions - an official will call a cellphone-like device attached to the offender's tag to find out why they are there and, if necessary, send a team out to them.

As part of this new system, Nesengani said, some crime victims would be given a device that would be triggered when the parolee came close to them or overstepped the demarcated boundary.

This would be detected by the Pretoria control-room staff and an official would contact the offender to question his or her movements.

"They'll activate a rapid-response unit [if necessary]," Nesengani said.

Ronald Ntuli, the department's director for supervision of parolees, said victims could request a device, similar to a cellphone, although it was yet to be rolled out.

Ntuli said the department would start phasing in alcohol-monitoring devices on parolees whose release conditions stipulated that they may not drink.

He said the device consisted of a box-like piece of equipment that photographs the parolee when sober and when they are drunk.