At-home surveillance
of prisoners launched
~ ‘Chippie’ network being used ~
PHILIPSBURG--Three prisoners are currently serving out the remainder of their jail terms at their homes in St. Maarten thanks to the support of local GSM/GPRS service provider United Telecommunication Services’ (UTS’) “Chippie” Network.
The initiative was welcomed by Stichting Justitie Inrichtingen Bovenwinden, SJIB (Foundation Judiciary Institutes Windward Islands), which received the first 10 SIM cards from Chippie on Friday to start with the electronic monitoring of prisoners.
SJIB Director Gregory Thomson told The Daily Herald Tuesday that the project was in its pilot phase. The process had been worked on for well over a year, but hit a snag when a telecommunication “handshake” was not possible between another local service provider and the Curaçao base where the Electronic Monitoring System is kept.
UTS General Manager Glen Carty told this newspaper he had been approached to find a solution to the problem and had called in his technical team. Using Chippie’s advanced technology the team was able to offer a solution quickly.
He said a special package was being worked on to make the overall cost for using the system far less than normal, and noted that what could help would be the intervention of Justice Minister David Dick to ask his colleague Telecommunication Minister Omayra Leeflang to waive the interconnect fee between Curaçao and St. Maarten for the connection.
Carty said the SIM cards weren’t being used for making actual phone calls, but would send signals to the main monitoring station in the event something out of the ordinary occurred.
Carty also said Chippie would continue to give as many SIM cards as needed to keep the programme running.
Thomson said the tests had been completed with Chippie at the beginning of March and now three inmates, whose names and addresses were withheld, have been able to start the rehabilitation programme.
Thomson said the Electronic Surveillance Programme involved offering rehabilitation training while giving inmates a chance to re-adjust to their environment. He said the process of selecting candidates came with several checks and balances and several players were involved in the decision-making.
He said the Pointe Blanche prison handled the technical aspect of the programme and the monitoring of prisoners. The idea is that the system will automatically send a signal from a prisoner’s electronic ankle bracelet through Chippie’s network to the base station at the prison indicating that the device has been tampered with or the prisoner has gone beyond the agreed boundary. That will trigger a response from the prison to the home of the inmate.
Thomson said only people with a stable home were accepted into the programme and there were other criteria, such as a good support system at home and the prisoner’s behaviour. The final decision on who is allowed to be part of the programme is made by the Central College of Rehabilitation in Curaçao.
The programme is being run in collaboration with the local police, Voluntary Corps of St. Maarten VKS, UTS and the Prosecutor’s Office.
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