Satellites Track Psychiatric Patients
June 8, 2010 by admin
Filed under News Stories
June 8, 2010
Times Online
By David Rose
Some of Britain’s most dangerous psychiatric patients, including murderers, rapists and paedophiles, are being fitted with satellite tracking devices to stop them escaping and reoffending.
A leading NHS trust has become the first to fit patients with an ankle bracelet containing global positioning system (GPS) technology, so they can be tracked if they abscond. The device, worn on a lockable, steel-reinforced, ankle strap, allows authorities to track a patient’s movements to within a few metres anywhere in the world.
More than 60 medium and high-risk patients detained at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust have been fitted with the device as a condition of day leave, or while they are transferred to and from hospitals.
The trust said that such measures were necessary to protect the public, after a series of high-profile incidents where patients absconded, fled abroad or committed violent crimes.
