Technology companies have proposed inserting tracking devices under offenders’ skin, using robots to contain prisoners and deploying driverless vehicles to transport them, as ministers seek to ease the UK prison crisis, according to minutes seen by the Guardian.
At a meeting in London last month chaired by the justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, more than two dozen firms were told that the government wanted ideas for using wearable technologies, behaviour monitoring and geolocation to create a “prison outside of prison”. Attendees included representatives of Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Palantir, IBM and the private prison operator Serco, alongside tagging and biometric companies. The event was hosted by the industry lobby group Tech UK.
Ministers asked the companies what a “digital, data and technology-enabled justice system” could look like in 2050. Responses included real-time behaviour monitoring and subcutaneous tracking to support health and behaviour management; AI advisers to assist offenders’ rehabilitation; and robotics “used to manage prisoner movement and containment”, including self-driving vehicles. Other suggestions involved quantum computers to analyse past data and predict future behaviour, and automating sentencing calculations.
Mahmood said she wanted “deeper collaboration between government and tech to solve the prison capacity crisis, reduce reoffending and make communities safer”. The prisons minister, James Timpson, called for a “tech-led approach to justice”. A government source stressed the ideas raised so far were hypothetical talking points intended to prompt discussion about future offender management. The meeting follows a review by the former justice secretary David Gauke last month that recommended fewer short prison sentences and greater use of AI.
Donald Campbell, director of advocacy at the non-profit organisation Foxglove, called the suggestions “alarmingly dystopian”. “It is chilling to know that justice ministers have sat with the tech sector to discuss using robots to manage prisoners, implanting devices under people’s skin to track their behaviour, or using computers to ‘predict’ what they will do in future,” he said. A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “As the public would rightly expect, we continue to explore technology that will help us cut crime, effectively monitor offenders and keep the public safe.” A second meeting with technology companies is scheduled for Tuesday, with Timpson due to hear 20-minute pitches at what officials call an “innovation den”.
