After escape, GPS monitoring eyed for open prisons in Japan
Jiji -- Apr 25
Japan's Justice Ministry is considering a plan to utilize the Global Positioning System to monitor inmates serving sentences in so-called prisons without walls, amid a prolonged manhunt for a fugitive.

Discussions on the plan were prompted by the escape of a 27-year-old prisoner from a dockyard workplace at such a prison in Imabari in Ehime Prefecture, western Japan, in early April.

But it is not easy to decide how much surveillance should be strengthened, as the facilities are designed to help rehabilitation through prison work in an open environment, sources familiar with the situation said.

Despite a police dragnet spread on a small island where he is believed likely to be hiding, the inmate has been on the run since he escaped from the Oi workplace, located within a commercial shipbuilding yard, of the Matsuyama prison on April 8.

The shipbuilding yard has 20 model inmates who were not convicted of serious crimes including murder. The fugitive was imprisoned for crimes including theft.

News source: Jiji