Tracking devices inserted under offenders’ skin, robots assigned to contain prisoners and driverless vehicles used to transport them were among the measures proposed by technology companies to ministers who are gathering ideas to tackle the crisis in the UK justice system.
The Guardian reports - it's seen the minutes - that these proposals were made at a meeting of more than two dozen tech companies in London last month, chaired by the justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood.
Those present, says the newspaper, included representatives of Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Palantir. IBM and the private prison operator Serco also attended, alongside tagging and biometric companies.
At the meeting, ministers told the companies they wanted ideas for using wearable technologies, behaviour monitoring and geolocation to create a "prison outside of prison".
The background to all this is a shortage of prison places - another legacy of previous Conservative governments - and probation officers under strain, but I am reminded of the book Crime Control as Industry by Nils Christie and his warning that there is no countervailing force to keep that industry in check.
As we all know, the easiest way to make money is to identify an area that is concerning ministers and work out how to extract the maximum amount of our money out of them by using their naive jargon to trap them. Carbon Capture or Intelligent Motorways anyone?
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