Astrium, Europe's leading space technology company, has been selected by the UK Ministry of Justice (MOJ) to provide sophisticated mapping and monitoring services for its new electronic monitoring program. Selected as preferred bidder for the contract, Astrium Services teams based in Far.nborough, Hampshire, will provide the mapping and monitoring expertise to enable the movements of offenders released under licence to be monitored.

As a mapping company originally established by the former UK Department of Trade and Industry in 1981, and now trading as Astrium Services, it will provide the critical location intelligence which will drive more effective and sophisticated monitoring, cost reductions in the programme and ultimately reduce re-offending rates as required by the Ministry of Justice.

Phil Brownnett, Managing Director of Astrium Services' GEO-Information in the UK said: "Working closely with Capita who will run the Monitoring Centres and Buddi a supplier of ankle tag devices, Astrium Services will provide critical location intelligence services capable of identifying and tracking the location of offenders who violate licence conditions for court orders for curfew or proximity to excluded zones.

"Using logic rules and advanced positioning technologies, Astrium Services is able to transmit alerts to the Monitoring Centres thereby helping achieve the strategic vision of the MOJ for reducing re-offending rates and prison sentences."

The new mapping and monitoring service will mean individual offenders subject to location monitoring requirements can easily be identified as having been at the scene of a crime or quickly eliminated from inquiries, delivering swifter justice and saving valuable police time and money. Existing technology only allows monitoring officers to see if a subject is within a short range of a base station installed in their home.

"We are delighted to have been selected for this prestigious program which leverages our on-line mapping, message gateway, tracking services and geospatial expertise. It is an example of world-class British professional services being used to support HMG and revolutionise offender management," Phil Brownnett continued.

Astrium Services offers a location intelligence solution that uses the latest geospatial and real-time messaging technologies, applying its 30 years of geospatial service provision to support criminal justice in the UK. Recognising the huge efficiency savings of shared services, the solution also has the potential to benefit many other areas of central government in criminal justice, national resilience, land management, transport and environment.

The electronic monitoring contract is expected to be awarded by the end of 2013 and will run for three years.

Through its GEO-Information business, Astrium Services is recognised as one of the leaders in the geo-spatial information market. The company provides decision-makers with complete solutions enabling them to increase security, maximize oil and gas or mining operations, improve their management of natural resources, and protect the environment. It has exclusive access to data from the SPOT, TerraSAR-X, TanDEM-X and Pleiades satellites.