Dutch prisoners could get remote knee locks
By Conrad Quilty-Harper 
posted February 22nd 2007 12:56PM
posted February 22nd 2007 12:56PM
The Dutch Ministry of Justice recently announced that special knee locks to prevent prisoner escapes could be tested later this year if parliament gives its approval. In the Netherlands, a "furlough" system is used to gradually reintroduce prisoners that have committed serious offenses back to society: instead of letting prisoners out when their term ends, they are accompanied by a guard to visit relatives, and gradually given more freedom until it is deemed that they are ready for unsupervised parole. Unfortunately, there have been several cases where prisoners on leave committed serious offenses like rape and murder by slipping away from their guards. The purpose of this test is to see whether a knee locking system -- which prevents a prisoner from moving if they move a certain distance away from their guard -- can prevent these kind of unfortunate cases. As draconian as this system may sound, it's probably the most humane of all the solutions that were looked at: prisoners could potentially have had to wear gadgets that gave them electric shocks or injected drugs to prevent them from escaping. The best part about this whole case is what justice ministry spokesman Wim van der Weegen compared the system to: illegally parked cars. Probably not the best analogy he could have used -- badly parked car = potentially inconvenient. Escaped prisoner = potentially capable of murder -- but we'll give Wim the benefit of the doubt this time, and mark it up as lost in translation.[Thanks, Joel]
Perhaps they should look into something involving two super strong electromagnets that would lock together when activated. That'd impair the persons ability to walk/run. Also some sort of GPS locating device would be good too. (like lowjack) Of course you still have to come up with some way of attaching these devices in a way that the person can't remove/disable them.
Been watching too much "face off"?
What if it locks up when their running like crazy, fall over and crack open their skull?
this only implies for the worst of the worst kinda criminals... only the serial rapist and murderers, the kind society finds itself better off without them.. but still spend millions a year on to try to change their character, if they succeed maybe society was wrong about them but for those who'd run away just want to get beck to the killing and raping... so.. who'd giva a damn if they crack open a scull or 2?
They don't lock up their arms too, so they can quite easily break their fall.
What if it locks up when their running like crazy, fall over and crack open their skull?
Then it has done it's job! Great! Even better if they fall in front of traffic.
Glad I'm not the only one who doesn't care.
An illegally parked car can result in death quite easily. Parking next to a (blind) corner could cause an accident, blocking access for emergency vehicles, etc...
Saw this on TV yesterday, looks kinda promising although they showed it with a remote control and not yet with the distance measuring thingy from prisoner to guard(actualy just some unarmed fool) to set it off, wich could render the thing useless if the prisoner were to snatch the remote from its so-called-guard.
If you don't want these "harsh" sentences don't do the f*cking crime. Once convicted there is no such thing as inhumane treatment. In fact, there aren't enough capital punishments!
"What if it locks up when their running like crazy, fall over and crack open their skull?"
Maybe they shouldn't have been running like crazy away from their parole officer?
As long as they keep their knee bent at say, 130 degrees, they should still be able to run pretty quickly, provided the knee lock is only on one knee and not both.
the angle is 90° once it's locked ;-) .. and they want to place it on both legs rather then 1
Found in cell of escaped Dutch Inmate:
NOTE TO SELF:
1. Call Hans to remind him to bring bolt cutters tomorrow for my day out of prison (Done)
2. Laugh all the way to my next crime (pending)
It sounds like there will be plenty of inmates practicing cartwheels in the yard by next week.
Wouldn't it be easier to just keep violent offenders in prison? I'd rather foot the bill as a taxpayer than risk having rapists and murderers "gradually" reintroduced into society. If they're not proved to be completely rehabilitated, they shouldn't be out of the prisons at all.
//It is a step above just releasing prisoners willy nilly like in the US however
I don't know. I look at that picture and it looks pretty simple, but can't you just cut that fabric thing, or bolt-cut the lock. And... How is that remote?
As I am fgrom The Netherlands, I'll try to shed some light on to this.
By no means would I call myself an expert on these things (luckily), just some knowledge from the news here;
First of, we are not talking about 'regular' prisoners here.
They want to use these locks on what we call 'TBS-ers', which -in simple terms- means that they are poeple who commited their crimes because/under infuence of a mental illness.
So they are not just sent to prison, but they undergo mental treatment by the state untill they are regarded 'healed' (or 'not of danger to society').
They are kept in special institutions for that, but part of their treatment is also to eventually get used to the outside world again.
However, lately it has happenend in several cases that their mental state was obviously completely misjudged, and a few very serious crimes were comitted while they were 'on leave'.
mind you, in some cases they were out WITHOUT guards, because the institute thought that would be okay.
Ofcourse these events have led to much uproar with the general public, so that's why politicians are falling over each other to come up with answers for this problem.
As we are a very libaral country, and in this case a bit too liberal for me, just keeping them locked up is for some reason not considdered an option.
By the way, the lock will have the leg(s) fully bended, and euhrm, Joshua James, did the thought occur to you that maybe Engadget just photoshopped up some witty image for this article...?
Ofcourse the actual device will be (I asume) much harder to remove then this picture suggests.
They need to surgically implant a GPS tracker in them and possibly a tazer chained to them so they can be instantly immobilised. This would prevent them running at all and you would always know where they are. The GPS tracker should be permanent for dangerous offenders for the rest of their lives.
Remember "Big Brother is watching you"? This is what would happen if this was done. Although I agree with you on the premise but no one wants to live under a communist regime right?
I think they should just go with the solution from the film "The Running Man" and have them wear explosive collars around their necks that detonate if they leave the defined area.
Why don't they just use leg shackles?
And how does this prevent them from getting away with mechanical assistance? That is, in a car? They can steal or jack a car. They can have a friend pick them up. Or they might even own a car already.
Good question.
It is certainly not a foolproof solution.
By the way, the comparison that was made to illegally parked car was not because the SITUATIONS are comparable, but because the devices used are (somewhat) comparable.
When you parc illagally, you have a chance of finding your car with a very sturdy wheel-lock.
There's no way you can remove that on the street, without damaging your car or without being noticed.
To be able to use your car again, you have to go and pay a fine, and then they will remove the wheel-lock.
I guess he meant to say the knee-lock is as sturdy as the wheel-lock.
As far as I am concerned, if you are convicted of a capital crime you should loose all your rights PERIOD. Tag them and put a device on them that can totally immobilise them remotely. Actually, while you are at it you can take away all their TV and computer games, internet and exercise equipment. Why send these people to a place that they can have fun, no matter how limited? Prison is meant to be a punishment!