- Author, Papa Atou Diaw
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Senegal on Tuesday inaugurated an electronic surveillance center marking the beginning of effective placement under electronic surveillance.
This device will make it possible to track the individual placed under electronic surveillance.
This means that judges can now place certain convicted or accused persons under electronic surveillance.
According to Senegal’s Minister of Justice Ismaila Madior Fall, electronic surveillance is an “alternative to pre-trial detention. »
An innovation which, according to him, still falls within the framework of “objectives linked to the humanization of criminal sanctions. Since 2018, Senegal has been talking about the introduction of the electronic bracelet as an alternative to prison. It was approved in July 2020 by the deputies.
1,000 electronic bracelets are already available, 1,000 others have already been ordered.
Why Senegal introduces the electronic bracelet for prisoners?
Prison overcrowding is one of the challenges that the Senegalese justice system is struggling to resolve.
Isamila Madior Fall, Senegalese Minister of Justice, moreover recalled President Sall’s desire to advocate “alternative measures to the application of sentences as well as the adjustment of sentences. In order to decongest the prisons. »
According to the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT) quoted by Amnesty International, “the prison population has doubled in Senegal in 20 years, going from 4,891 detainees to 11,547 in 2019. The current detention capacity is limited to four thousand two hundred and twenty. -four (4224) for a prison population that can reach peaks of twelve thousand (12000) prisoners. »
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Added to this is the problem of long preventive detentions which are the subject of strong criticism in the country.
Mr. Fall also recognizes the failure of the policies of adjustment of sentences undertaken by the State.
“Until now, the implementation of most modes of sentence adjustment has remained timid, has not achieved all the expected results, while mechanisms such as conditional release and the reduction of sentences do not on their own allow to significantly unclog the prisons even less to achieve the objectives related to the humanization of the penal sanction”, he acknowledges.
“The use of the electronic bracelet as an alternative to pre-trial detention and a mode of adjustment of sentences is particularly interesting for reducing the warrants of committal and limiting the custodial sentences”, continues the Senegalese Minister of Justice during the inauguration of the electronic monitoring center.
Who are the people who will be able to benefit from placement under an electronic bracelet?
According to Alassane Ndiaye, coordinator of the brand new electronic surveillance center, people who can benefit from placement under electronic surveillance fall into three categories:
- persons who are the subject of a judicial investigation: the offense for which they are being prosecuted should be punished by at least three years’ imprisonment.
- Persons who appear before a trial court: that is to say when the court (correctional or criminal) decides or pronounces a prison sentence equal to or less than three years. These people can benefit from placement under surveillance, that is to say the management of the judgment will decide to substitute the electronic bracelet for the prison sentence.
- Persons who have already been convicted and who are serving their sentence in a prison establishment: the law specifies that to benefit from placement under electronic surveillance, the remainder of the sentence to be served must be at least equal to six months and does not exceed one year.
Photo credit, Alassane Ndiaye
Alassane Ndiaye, coordinator of the electronic surveillance center.
“We can consider that there is a fourth category of people who escape the criteria linked to the sentence. These are sick people or elderly people, whether before the investigating judge, the trial court or when these people are carrying out a sentencing decision in a penitentiary establishment, the criteria linked to the length of the sentence do not will not be considered,” said Mr. Ndiaye.
What will be the use of the electronic monitoring center?
The purpose of the center, according to Alassane Ndiaye, is to observe and control the various movements of people who benefit from the measure of placement under electronic monitoring, electronic bracelet using screens that are installed in the center.
“There are also prison officials who must stay in the center 24 hours a day, seven days a week in order to be able to check the movements of all the people who are placed under electronic surveillance” , he says.
“This center also receives the decisions of placement under electronic surveillance which are processed with the data that will have to be integrated in order to be able to have all the information for each of the people who have benefited from the measure”, adds Mr. Ndiaye.
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Is this a solution to the decongestion of prisons due to long preventive detentions?
The initiative to place people under electronic surveillance is welcomed by the Prisoner Support Association.
Nevertheless, Ibrahima Sall believes that it is not a panacea to unclog Senegalese prisons.
Mr. Sall deplores the state of Senegalese prisons, most of which are inherited from colonization. “These are fortifications of the colonial administration,” he asserts. They do not meet the standards required by law. “Senegal has thirty-seven (37) prisons, almost all inherited from the French colonial administration. Most prisons are dilapidated and overcrowded,” says an Amnesty International document.
According to Mr. Sall “thirty-three (33) of these prisons have greatly exceeded their capacity. »
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In addition, Senegal faces an insufficient number of magistrates.
Senegal has four hundred (400) lawyers for a population of seventeen (17) million inhabitants, almost all established in Dakar and 546 magistrates, i.e. 03 magistrates for 100,000 inhabitants, a figure well below the international standard. which is 10 magistrates per 100,000 inhabitants.