Justice Minister Dermot Ahern announced plans last year for the introduction of electronic tagging of certain sex offenders after they are released from prison. Electronic tagging has been around in one form or another for some twenty five years. This system was introduced as a low cost alternative to imprisonment in some cases and a method of facilitation of early release of offenders in other cases.
Unfortunately electronic tagging has been proven to be a very poor and inefficient substitute for proper supervision and rehabilitation programs.
The Canadian federal state of British Columbia has withdrawn the scheme as it was ineffective. The Scottish experience has proved a costly failure both economically and in human costs . The Jurisdiction of England and Wales has found it too a complete failure, with sky high recidivism due to problems with the technology, and third party monitoring. Tall buildings and weather conditions also proved obstacles, as too did the prisoners themselves by simply cutting the tags off or committing crimes while wearing the tags as they were De Facto unsupervised .
History in England and other jurisdictions.
The Home Detention Curfew scheme, as electronic tagging or electronic monitoring is correctly known, was introduced in England in 1999 to ease prison overcrowding and was dramatically expanded in 2003 as a cheap alternative to building new prisons. Over 137,000 people have been placed on the scheme, one of the biggest electronic monitoring programs in the world.
Offenders are now be released up to four and a half months early, with the ankle tag ostensibly ensuring they stay at their home address during night curfew hours -normally 7pm to 7am - while a computerised box alerts private operating contractors if they breach the rules. At any one time around 3,00 offenders are wearing tags on early release, with around 800 tagged as part of bail conditions or under a special community punishment.
The Problems
Firstly; due to overcrowding in the prison system, the selection of offenders for early release and tagging was based on numbers rather that selection of suitable offenders. Those not suitable for tagging that did pose a threat to the public were released early often with tragic consequences. For example the murder of jeweller Marian Bates in 2003 in Nottingham by teenager Peter Williams, released early on a tag while on an Intensive Surveillance and Supervision Programme and a Drug Testing Order - a similar but separate scheme to the Home Detention Curfew system.
Secondly; offence after offence has been committed with impunity by tagged offenders, as they are free to act impulsively since the breaking of curfew is often reported long after new offences have been committed and the rate is increasing. Curfew breaches rose to 43,843 in 2006 from 11,435 in 2005 - an increase of 283 per cent. Some 8,000 serious crimes have to date been committed by tagged offenders, including a thousand-plus violent offences.
Thirdly; the tags have been easily removed by knife, cigarette lighter and any number of ingenious way by the offenders themselves. Approximately 1,000 criminals are now 'illegally at large' having cut off their tags and disappeared. The UK Ministry of Justice figures from 2006 show tags were removed by offenders 1,942 times that year compared with just over 1,073 in 2005.
Finally the tags rely on phone signals to track them, often administered by third parties who fail to monitor them at all or send in reports late, and the signal is regularly blocked by buildings, weather, and other signals.
Summary
Apart from these problems, tagging has been used as an alternative to the more expensive options of therapy, rehabilitation and probation services. Tagging has been shown to be no deterrent to committing further offences and have no effect in changing behaviours or reducing recidivism unlike the other methods mentioned above.
The Solicitor General for Canada, where it has been in place for the longest time, examined three separate tagging schemes. Its conclusion was clear and unequivocal: “Being placed in an electronic monitoring programme has no appreciable effect on criminal behaviour. Offenders continued to engage in as much crime as those who remained imprisoned or those who received a sentence of probation. Electronic monitoring programmes may actually increase criminal justice costs by widening the net without improving public safety.”
Sexual offenders in particular are not suitable for such electronic monitoring and it would be a great error to institute this inexpensive ineffective alternative for them rather than appropriate programs. It has been shown by accepted studies, with therapy sexual offenders have the lowest rate of recidivism of all prisoners, less than 5% commit further offences within three years of release, using electronic monitoring as an alternative to proper supervision and rehabilitation by actual trained professionals would be a failure to safeguard the general public.
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