Use tech-tracking for home custody of low-risk offenders: Supreme Court Judge

Confinement need not always be behind concrete walls, Justice Augustine George Masih said and urged States to rethink what custody should mean. Encouraging home custody for low-risk offenders, the Supreme Court Judge asserted that lawful restraint could now be enforced through silent shackles of technology.

Proposing an alternative custody architecture, Justice Masih said that petty and low-risk offenders need not be pushed into overcrowded prisons, when GPS-enabled home custody could serve as a valid form of confinement. “In India, we can follow the concept of house-arrest for low-risk offenders and track their movements utilising technology,” the Judge said, while speaking at a seminar on correctional justice.

Drawing from global models, Justice Masih pointed out that South Korea was using GPS-based anklets for low-risk offenders in lieu of imprisonment, ensuring compliance with court directions and simultaneously reducing the burden on jail infrastructure. The Judge suggested that India could adopt a similar calibrated supervision model, with technology ensuring adherence to the boundaries of lawful restraint.

Referring to behavioural-based rehabilitation systems, Justice Masih cited Monroe County in the United States where a dedicated animal-care unit allowed inmates to work under supervision, bringing demonstrable changes in conduct, responsibility and readiness for reintegration. A comparable effort, the Judge noted, already existed through a gaushala inside Karnal district jail.

Justice Masih said these comparative frameworks marked a clear global shift—from punitive incarceration to systems rooted in dignity, skill-building and measurable reintegration. Humane treatment, structured incentives and updated skill programmes, the Judge said, had demonstrably reduced re-offending.

“A prisoner loses his right to liberty but retains his right to be treated as a human being and as a person,” Justice Masih asserted, while adding that any degradation inside prisons was not a natural incident of custody but a breach of the State’s obligation. A system that returned individuals to society angrier, less employable and more alienated, he said, could not call itself correctional.

Justice Masih added the country must move away from legacy punitive structures by replacing the 1894 prison law with the Model Prisons and Correctional Services Act, 2023, to formalise reintegration-based custody. The Judge also pressed for contemporary skill ecosystems inside prisons, such as digital literacy, IT-linked competencies and employability for white-collar work. Without modern skills, inmates often returned to the same conduct after release, Justice Masih warned

Rehabilitation, the Judge said, was not merely a jail-level programme but a societal responsibility, and reintegration could not succeed unless communities were prepared to receive reformed individuals. “The aim must be to ensure that time in a correctional facility becomes a path to a second chance and not a dead-end street,” the Judge said, adding that correctional justice was not about retaliation but about enabling individuals to emerge “re-energised for a fresh start.”