Senegal tackles prison overcrowding – in pictures

Senegal’s prisons are old, overcrowded and cannot manage the thousands incarcerated for petty crimes. Many of those in jail are ineligible for bail because they do not have official addresses. In response, the country has launched a pilot scheme to release hundreds of inmates under electronic supervision. If successful, it could become a blueprint for others with clogged jails, with Morocco and Togo already pursuing similar programmes

Zohra Bensemra / Reuters

Main image: A detainee is monitored with an electronic bracelet. Photograph: Zohra Bensemra/Reuters

  • Prison service officers at a surveillance centre monitor people wearing electronic bracelets who were released under the programme that aims to decongest prisons
    Prison officers look at computer monitors

  • A detainee with an electronic bracelet at her house after she was released. Sceptics say the tag, which requires charging, excludes people in poorer areas without electricity – about 30% of the population
    A woman next to a window in a darkened room

  • An officer displays an electronic bracelet. In September, over half of Senegal’s prison population were pre-trial detainees. A shortage of lawyers and magistrates means some people wait years for their case to be heard
    A surveillance unit officer displays an electronic bracelet

  • A detainee with an electronic bracelet sits at her house. With the tag, she is allowed to move within an assigned perimeter in her neighbourhood. Any breach would cause it to vibrate and alert the central surveillance centre.
    A person with an electronic tag around their ankle

  • Different sizes of electronic bracelets are stored inside the stock room at the surveillance centre
    Electronic bracelets in storage

  • A detainee is reflected on a television screen at his house. Prison capacity is exceeded in 42 of the 47 African countries and territories where data is available
    A person is reflected on a television screen

  • Senegal is the first country in west Africa to trial such a scheme. If successful, it could become a blueprint for other countries with clogged jails
    A person with an electronic tag around their ankle

  • For pregnant women who are desperate not to give birth in prison, the scheme is a relief.
    Silhouette of a person next to a window

  • Ankle monitors have their critics, however, who say they do not resolve the underlying causes of crammed cells, including harsh punishments for minor crimes and glacial judicial systems. And in authoritarian regimes, rights groups fear they may be overused for surveillance purposes.
    A person with an electronic tag around their ankle

  • Lt Moussa Dieye, right, the head of the surveillance unit says: ‘With this bracelet, we can let them out and supervise them while they await judgment.’ The unit is surveilling about 240 people but has the capacity to oversee 1,000. Dieye says the plan is to expand, but the challenge is enormous. Senegal’s prison population exceeds 13,000, the government says. The occupancy level was 130% of capacity in 2018, according to the World Prison Brief
    Two men in uniform holding bracelets
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