THE Department of Correctional Services, headed by Major Richard Reese, is in negotiations with a Jamaican-owned but United States-based company to introduce an electronic tracking system for individuals within the penal system.

Dilieu Technology, a company headquartered in Oakland, California and founded by a group of Jamaicans, says its state-of-the-art system has been used in 46 US states and in parts of Europe to monitor the movements of persons on parole or bail, sex offenders, juvenile delinquents or abusive spouses considered a danger to their partners.

The technology is also widely used for tracking motor vehicles, and allows for 24-hour monitoring.

Yesterday, parliamentary secretary in the national security ministry Senator Kern Spencer confirmed that a working group had been looking at the matter for the past three months.

The next move is a Cabinet submission, as it relates to tracking prisoners, being drafted in collaboration with Corrections and Dilieu.

“And then, I suspect, that there definitely has to be some legal changes which have to be fleshed out in Parliament,” said Spencer.

“However, we are still seeking the advice of the Ministry of Justice to find out if there are actual legal changes needed, and if so what route would have to be taken.”

Investment and trade promotion agency, which is acting as an intermediary by assisting Dilieu through the bureaucracy, told the Sunday Observer that legal changes to the Parole Act and the Bail Act are likely required.

The talks are to lease the system under licence, not buy, for which the company would bill up to US$12 per day per person tagged for tracking.

“With the levels where crime has reached in Jamaica, it is important that we allow the law enforcement departments to have cutting edge tools being used around the world to reduce crime in their jurisdictions,” said Dilieu managing partner Carl Bennett.

To track an individual, the system requires the subject to wear a plastic band or bracelet worn around the ankle, and an active unit, which looks like a two-way radio, which must be within 20 feet of the ankle band.

The unit can be attached to the person’s belt or placed in a room.

The system utilises Global Positioning Systems (GPS) or a cellular network to lock into the signal from the ankle band 24 hours per day, seven days per week.

“It is an active system in that the person wearing it does not have to do anything for them to be tracked,” Bennett said.

A passive system would require the individual to call into a network in order to be tracked.

“With a passive system, you are only able to track that person when that person chooses to communicate with you,” said Bennett.

If Dilieu gets the nod from Correctional Services the company plans to “piggy-back” on MiPhone/Oceanic Digital’s cellular network for the system to cover the island.

Otherwise, the company has the option of GPS satellites, which would allow for 98 per cent coverage of the island. The system is not unbreachable. Persons can remove the band or bracelet, but the process is difficult because of what Bennett describes as optical cables running through it.

“Once an attempt is made to tamper with the ankle band the system is notified immediately,” he said.

But, back on his sales pitch, Bennett contends that his technology would be a vast improvement on the current system where persons on bail typically report to an office at a police station each day or once or twice a week, depending on their bail conditions.

The question of cost of the system has not been finalised, but the PTS is being offered to government on a lease basis.

According to Bennett, Dilieu would earn its revenue based on the number of persons it tags for tracking, and its fees would range between US$9 and US$12 per day per person.

“We have an agreement in principle with the Department of Correctional Services, but we’re trying to strike a deal that would make it beneficial for the department to utilise this system and not create a cost prohibitive scenario that would prevent them from performing their normal budgetary requirements,” said Bennett.

Prison sources say it costs the government about US$22 to maintain an inmate in prison per day.

At the end of December 2004, the most recent figures available, the prison population stood at 4,917, or 670 men and women above the ‘ideal population’.

The tracking system is meant only for low-risk prisoners who would then be free to hold jobs and earn their own keep.

Dilieu’s representatives met with Ministry of National Security Dr Peter Phillips last week, and have been in dialogue with Commissioner of Corrections Major Richard Reese in an effort to make the service available to the government.

While the PTS would be used initially to track persons on bail and on parole, there are many more applications for which the system could be used, such as monitoring persons on house arrest, delinquent juveniles who could be tracked from home to school; or paedophiles who could be excluded from proximity to schools.

“In the States, it is used when there is a restraining order against a man who is not supposed to come within a certain distance from his ex-wife’s home. An exclusion zone can be placed around the house,” said Bennett.

He said there was evidence of crime rates falling in jurisdictions where the technology is used.

Dilieu was founded nine years ago by a group of Jamaica College alumni who went on to study at ivy league Princeton University, and University of New York at Albany in the United States.

The company is headquartered in California, and has offices in South Florida, New York and Nebraska.

Bennett says it takes three to five days to train persons to operate the system, and that Dilieu would provide the necessary technical support.

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