Cartrack, a global provider of fleet management solutions, insurance telematics and vehicle tracking and recovery, made its international debut of INTEGRATE - an end-to-end managed Electronic Monitoring Services (EMS) solution - at the INTERPOL WORLD 2015 exhibition in Singapore earlier this year, once again raising questions of whether locally developed technology that is currently being successfully implemented overseas could and should be used in South Africa to assist in solving regional problems.
INTEGRATE allows law enforcement agencies to effectively monitor persons-of-interest, such as offenders on extended supervision, parole, home detention or community detention. They can also be prison inmates going through halfway care and who are in the process of reintegrating into society.
Already in use in Singapore - one of the safest cities in the world according to The Economist's Intelligence Unit Report 2015 - INTEGRATE is underpinned by the control-room system that was initially developed in South Africa for the purpose of vehicle tracking and recovery. Given the complexity of the local market, the control-room system is globally incomparable and superior, making it the ideal platform for advanced and extensive telematics that extend beyond the vehicle industry.
This, of course, bears the question on why the technology is not being used to its full advantage locally, to assist in alleviating the burden on the justice system.
"There is no doubt that the INTEGRATE system would be a hugely beneficial platform to assist in addressing the overcrowding issues in South African prisons," says Cartrack CEO, Zak Calisto.
"Even though this is not Cartrack's core business, our technology platform provides actionable data to enterprises who have a legal interest in assets and people. The fact that this technology is rooted with locally developed insights and challenges in mind, we are confident that its integration into the local justice system would prove to be a valuable one as well as an added relief to taxpayers."
In 2014, the Department of Correctional Services said that it costs the taxpayer R9 876.35 per month to incarcerate an inmate, whereas electronic monitoring solutions cost on average R3, 379 per tagged person. This equates to a saving of almost R6 500 per inmate every month.
While there has been a slow introduction of electronic tagging since it was first introduced locally in April 2014, there remains huge scope to amplify efforts. If done correctly, the prison population could be reduced by almost a third, representing a huge relief on the overcrowding issues as well as a huge saving for taxpayers.
"The world has already embraced the benefits of electronic tagging," concludes Calisto. "While we have certainly made progress as a country, there remains a huge opportunity to ingrain the process into our justice system as a relatively quick, and cost effective solution."
