Hong Kong tests high-tech systems to make ‘smart prisons’

In order to protect inmates from others and keep them from harming themselves, Hong Kong is taking an initiative of making all its prisons ‘smart’ by incorporating latest tech such as robots and wearables.

Hong Kong is testing several high-tech services to make its prisons smart that will allow correctional facilities to better track inmates. The services will be used to monitor for abnormal behavior among the incarcerated, prevent self-harm, and operate the prisons more efficiently, reported South China Morning Post.

The ‘smart prison system’ initiative includes equipping the inmates with fitness tracker-style wristbands that will monitor their location and activity, including their heart rate. If the pulse is irregular or any inmate tries to remove the band, the staff will be alarmed. Some facilities will also start to use video surveillance systems that can detect any unusual behavior, fights and attempts to inflict self-harm; if something is detected, an alarm will go out in the monitoring station immediately.

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The video surveillance system includes placing cameras in bathrooms and the tracking wristbands place inmate under permanent watch of guards even when they aren’t in front of a camera. Moreover, the city’s Correctional Services is also testing robots, which will reportedly cost about $125,000 and will be used to look for drugs in feces from inmates, wrote Engadget.

“The Correctional Services Department strives to enhance efficiency of custodial operations and security of correctional institutions through the application of innovation and technology, while protecting the safety of officers and persons in custody,” said Hong Kong’s Commissioner of Correctional Services, Danny Woo Ying-ming.

If the new technologies prove useful, the department said, it would deploy them at other institutions in future.