When Senegal starts using electronic tag bracelets for people facing trial next year, it would become the second country on the continent after South Africa to implement a move that will deal with overcrowding at correctional facilities. In Africa, South Africa began a pilot project of electronic monitoring in March 2012, involving 150 offenders, mostly prisoners serving life terms. The project was aimed at reducing overcrowding in prisons in South Africa and reducing the taxpayer’s burden on correctional facilities. The DCS further began engaging with the judiciary to suggest electronic monitoring as an alternative form of sentencing. Meanwhile, Kelly Gillespie, an anthropologist at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg hailed the electronic monitoring project believing that placing young people in prison formally got them closer to gang structures.

Source: The North Africa Journal December 07, 2018 13:52 UTC