Towards a digitally transformed criminal justice system: A South African case study

Abstract

The criminal justice system is a critical component of the South African government and its developmental and operational activities must be seamless to ensure timely delivery of justice to those who committed crimes. This study provides a glimpse into the current initiatives by the South African government towards a digitally transformed criminal justice system and conducts a gap analysis on these implementations, as well as highlights improvement opportunities. The study also proposes some of the technological paradigms (such as blockchain, 3D printing, digital twins, artificial intelligence and 5G) which demonstrate great potential to transform the South African criminal justice system. Last but not least, Estonia’s digital transformation initiatives to improve the criminal justice system are presented to benchmark the South African justice maturity level. From our analysis, it was discovered that South Africa has made significant strides towards modernizing its justice system. However, there is still room to modernize the justice system further by leveraging emerging technologies. Notably, these modernization efforts may require lengthy legislative processes, which is likely to delay utilization of the digital solutions by the justice cluster.