http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article3333852.ece
(((Got yourself a picture-perfect version of "mission creep"
here, folks. Hey – is it okay if only *pedophiles" are injected with a global-satellite tracked 24-7-365 Mark o' the Beast?
After all, those are *child molesters!!!!*)))
(((There are those who think that spychip crusader
Katherine Albrecht lacks the Biblical Gift of Prophecy, but read on, o ye of little faith.)))
Prisoners 'to be chipped like dogs' - Independent Online Edition > UK Politics.
"Ministers are planning to implant "machine-readable" microchips under the skin of thousands of offenders as part of an expansion of the electronic tagging scheme that would create more space in British jails.
"Amid concerns about the security of existing tagging systems and prison overcrowding, the Ministry of Justice is investigating the use of satellite and radio-wave technology to monitor criminals.
"But, instead of being contained in bracelets worn around the ankle, the tiny chips would be surgically inserted under the skin of offenders in the community, to help enforce home curfews. The radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, as long as two grains of rice, are able to carry scanable personal information about individuals, including their identities, address and offending record.
The tags, labelled "spychips" by privacy campaigners, are already used around the world to keep track of dogs, cats, cattle and airport luggage, but there is no record of the technology being used to monitor offenders in the community. The chips are also being considered as a method of helping to keep order within prisons.
A senior Ministry of Justice official last night confirmed that the department hoped to go even further, by extending the geographical range of the internal chips through a link-up with satellite-tracking similar to the system used to trace stolen vehicles. "All the options are on the table, and this is one we would like to pursue," the source added. (((How interesting to hear this, considering that for years pro-RFID enthusiasts have been claiming that real-time global tracking of subcutaneous chips is technically impossible. Maybe somebody should go run and tell Annalee Newitz this prospect is "no longer io9 science fiction".)))
"The move is in line with a proposal from Ken Jones, the president of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), that electronic chips should be surgically implanted into convicted paedophiles and sex offenders in order to track them more easily. Global Positioning System (GPS) technology is seen as the favoured method of monitoring such offenders to prevent them going near "forbidden" zones such as primary schools. (((It's a kind of urban Adam Greenfield "differential permissioning," except it's okay for the cops to use it, because, you know, deviant sex is involved.)))
"We have wanted to take advantage of this technology for several years, because it seems a sensible solution to the problems we are facing in this area," a senior minister said last night. "We have looked at it and gone back to it and worried about the practicalities and the ethics, but when you look at the challenges facing the criminal justice system, it's time has come." (((Huzzah!)))
The Government has been forced to review sentencing policy amid serious overcrowding in the nation's jails, after the prison population soared from 60,000 in 1997 to 80,000 today. The crisis meant the number of prisoners held in police cells rose 13-fold last year, with police stations housing offenders more than 60,000 times in 2007, up from 4,617 the previous year.
The UK has the highest prison population per capita in western Europe, and the Government is planning for an extra 20,000 places at a cost of £3.8bn – including three gigantic new "superjails" – in the next six years. (((Thank goodness we have cutting-edge subcutaneous technologies to allow the "prison population" to expand – enough to include the *entire British population,* now that we think of it.)))
More than 17,000 individuals, including criminals and suspects released on bail, are subject to electronic monitoring at any one time, under curfews requiring them to stay at home up to 12 hours a day. But official figures reveal that almost 2,000 offenders a year escape monitoring by tampering with ankle tags or tearing them off....
(((And after this part, the article starts getting good.)))
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