Hong Kong’s Smart Prison Is Equipped With Poop-Cleaning Robots And Wearable Trackers

Supervising a prison may include a lot of tasks, from preventing convicts from escaping to guaranteeing their safety from themselves and others. Sometimes, security officers have had a lot of difficulties monitoring prisoners effectively.

A robotic arm is designed to seek for contraband into inmates' excrement.

Hong Kong has now applied a chain of technological advances to improve the safety and security for prisoners. This week, the Correctional Services Department has made an announcement on its new plan that combines IoT technology, wearables, and robots to supervise inmates.

The department is monitoring a massive amount of criminals (about 8,300) in its prison system, that’s why they believe a “smart prison” may be a perfect solution to ease what they have to do. They plan to test the model in some prisons to check its efficiency before expanding its scope of application.

According to the South China Morning Post, among these tech solutions, a robotic arm is designed to handle the “dirty work” like filtering the new inmates’ excrement to look for contraband such as cash, weapons, or drugs. Heretofore, security officers were the ones to do this uninteresting job by using wooden sticks.

A video system to detect odd behaviours.

In addition, Hong Kong also plans to test a tracking wristband that has some similarities with a fitness band available on the current market. The device is destined to follow where inmates are present in reality, as well as inform the related officials in case they are injured or have any suspicious activity.

The authorities of the Pik Uk Prison have tested a video system to supervise their inmates. The system with the 12 cameras can record any live footage of what’s happening in the prison. Besides, its built-in algorithm is developed based on stored footage to realize any uncommon behaviour from inmates. When detecting any suspicious event, it will automatically alert the authorities.

However, some issues arise from this smart prison system, especially towards the surveillance system. One of the most prominent problems is two among the Pik Uk Prison’s cameras were assembled in the restrooms of inmates. Also, according to what the superintendent said to SCMP, some pieces of the footage were “obscured”, but he didn’t point out this event happened automatically or was conducted later. Considering the severity, it may be an opportunity for corrupt officers to sell the footage of inmates to the black market.

Hopefully, the Correctional Services Department in Hong Kong can ensure both rights and safety for their inmates.