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Is GPS tracking the answer to our creaking criminal justice system?
Nov 4, 2010
Will Iredale, Account Director
Any parent who has experienced the utter panic when their young children temporarily wander, will identify with the reasons which prompted entrepreneur Sara Murray to develop a GPS tracker called buddi. As today’s Daily Mail reports, Sara was driven to look for a way to keep an eye on her daughter Rowena after she went missing in a supermarket. Her vision and invention resulted in buddi launching nearly four years ago.
But that was very much the genesis of buddi, and it has evolved into something far more.
Its main use today is in the massive market of telecare – specifically for use by the elderly and those who have early stage Alzheimer’s. buddi allows them to remain independent for longer – visit the shops, see friends, go for a walk – and carers can remotely monitor their every movement 24/7, giving peace of mind for all concerned. More than 100 councils across the UK are now using buddi for this purpose. But don’t be fooled into thinking this is an entirely altruistic move on the part of the councils. Economist John Kay has estimated that UK-wide, local authorities could save £2bn annually by using buddi, because people remain independent for longer and the cost of expensive care is dramatically reduced.
However, perhaps the most exciting future for this technology is also the most controversial. In the summer, one of the UK’s largest NHS trusts became the first to start using the “buddi tracker” to track some of their most dangerous patients mingling with the public on day release. Former murderers, rapists and paedophiles wear a buddi unit attached to a locked ankle strap, which beams back their exact location to the authorities every 15 seconds. What many people don’t realise is the “tag” we hear so much about only lets the authorities know when the wearer gets home. That can hardly be a satisfactory way to monitor a potentially dangerous criminal. You can imagine the conversation as the police try and solve a local crime…..
“Where have they been?”
“Don’t know Guv, but I can tell you when he got home.”
buddi on the other hand, monitors the wearer to within a few feet of wherever they go, around the clock (just think of the implications of that, and - with inbuilt alarms - it is virtually impossible for buddi to be removed from the wearer). Not long ago a patient wearing a buddi around his ankle “disappeared” and the local police who picked him up in under two hours say they saved the taxpayer £300,000, which would have been the cost for helicopter searches by the police, and of course no guarantee they would have found him.
Cuts in public spending means less police on the streets and probably more people out of prison. Surely there needs to be new thinking about the way the authorities deal with criminals? The criminal justice system needs radically reorganised and upgraded to embrace this technology. Of course, there needs a debate, but in one fell swoop the Coalition Government could radically change the way people are punished, saving the taxpayer billions, and possibly making Britain a safer place to live.
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