I)Tagging Was First Piloted As a Condition of Bail for Unconvicted Defendants. the Trials

1.Introduction

Curfew orders backed by electronic monitoring were first introduced in July 1995 on a trial basis. They were rolled out nationally in December 1999 for any convicted individual aged 16 or over, and were brought in later for 10-15-year-olds in February 2001. In 2003, 13,430 orders were made on those aged 16 years and over, and further 2,240 on the 10-15-age range. The Order allows for an individual to be electronically tagged and subjected to dawn to dusk house arrest, or curfew, for up to 12 hours a day and for a maximum of 6 calendar months. Napo believes that there is now strong evidence to suggest that electronic monitoring is expensive and ineffective. The latest figures show that tagging is twice as expensive as supervision by probation staff and that violations by individual offenders tagged are not routinely followed up by the private companies that administer the scheme. There are also a range of complaints from probation and court staff about delay and non-communication.

2.History

i)Tagging was first piloted as a condition of bail for unconvicted defendants. The trials took place in Nottingham, North Tyneside and Tower Hamlets in London during 1989. The pilots ran for 6 months, but during that period only 50 individuals were tagged, with 29 violating the tag or charged with further offences. The low take up was partly because of doubts about the technology and also because of indifference from many of the key agencies.1

ii)Tagging was not attempted again until July 1995. On this occasion legislation had been introduced to allow for a freestanding curfew order with electronic monitoring as a condition. Trials were planning to run for 6 months in the City of Manchester, Reading and Norfolk. However, the Home Office offered no guidance to the Courts on how to target the new Order. The take up initially was low, so the 3 pilot areas were extended to March 1997, with a further extension to March 1998, and the geographical areas were extended to the whole of Berkshire and Greater Manchester.

iii)Within the first 12 month 83 offenders were sentenced to curfews, rising to 375 in the second 12 month period. The completion rates were 75% and 82% respectively. Research found: that there was slow take up by the Courts; Magistrates were not enthusiastic about electronic monitoring; probation staff did not encourage their use; and clear guidance was not in evidence.2

iv)However some advice was issued to Magistrates Courts in May 1994 during training.3 This advice was specific on what electronic monitoring could not do:

Reduce crime
Stop offenders breaching curfews
Stop offenders committing further offences
Preventing offenders from going short distances from their homes

The same advice, however, said that electronic monitoring could potentially:

Manage offenders in the community
Provide an alternative community sentence
Reduce the opportunity for crime

3.Home Detention Curfew Scheme

A second scheme involving electronic monitoring was introduced in January 1999, whereby eligible prisoners serving between 3 months and less than 4 years could be released up to 60 days before the end of their sentence, providing they agreed to be tagged. Prisoners qualified if their crimes did not involve sexual matters, drugs or violence. In the first 16 months 21,400 prisoners were released with 5% recalled to jail for violation. Home Office research, however, showed that there was considerable inconsistency in the operation of the scheme between different jails. During 2001, just 25% of those eligible were actually released. The same Home office research found that some Prison Governors believed that the scheme involved extra risk, extra work and feared getting decisions wrong. The scheme was, therefore, changed in April 2002 to allow for a presumption of eligibility rather than the discretion of the Governor for those serving less than 12 months. The Home Secretary also extended the release period to 90 days. Further, in April 2003 the Home Secretary extended the discount period on the Home Detention Curfew Scheme to 4.5 months for all those serving less than 4 years. The purpose was to try to encourage Governors to release a greater proportion of those serving between 2 and 3 years, again providing the offence was not violent, sexual or drug related.

In January 2004, the Home Secretary changed the scheme again, giving the Chief Executive of the Prison Service the power to overrule the release on HDC if it was thought that the release was against the public interest.

The number on the HDC scheme on a daily basis rose from 1,650 in October 2001 to 2,100 in the following June, and to 2,400 by September 2003. The numbers reached a peak of 3,700 by the end of 2004.

4.Recent Research

Research commissioned by the Home Office and published in December 2002 found that the curfew order was only used as an alternative to prison in 15% of cases. Research also found that it was used instead of a fine in 29% of cases, and instead of community penalties in 20% of cases. The work also found that a third of those on a curfew order were breached, usually because of absenteeism, although in 11% of cases it was because the equipment had been tampered with. Napo said at the time, “this research shows that curfew orders in effect are having little impact on the prison population and offer no assistance in the process of rehabilitation or reform.”4

5.Further Extensions

In 2000 tagging was allowed as a condition of a community order. From March 2002 the Home Secretary, David Blunkett, gave the Courts the power to tag 12 to 16-year-olds as a condition of bail. In June 2002 the Home Detention Curfew Scheme was extended to Detention and Training Orders for 12-15-year-olds. Anybody serving more than 8 months could apply for a 2 month discount. From April 2004, all community sentences were merged into one generic community order and one of the conditions that could be attached was a curfew with electronic monitoring conditions.

6.Satellite Tracking

In September 2004, it was announced that the Police and Probation Services would keep checks on certain sex offenders, and others convicted of very serious offences, 24 hours a day using satellite tracking. In all up to 120 offenders were to be tracked in Manchester, Hampshire and the West Midlands. If an offender breaks the conditions by either approaching a victims house or going into an area where there are children or going out outside the restricted hours, they will be deemed to have breached the conditions. The scheme will last for 12 months and will cost £86 per person per day. Napo said at the time, “the scheme must be reserved for the most serious offenders. However satellite tracking will do nothing in itself to stop crime.”5

7.Latest Figures

During 2003, 13,400 curfew orders with an electronic monitoring condition were made for those aged 16 plus, with a further 2,240 for the 10-15-age range. This compares to 9,182 and 2,279 for the respective age groups in 2002. The figures show that around 6,000 curfew orders were made during 2001. During 2003 12 times as many orders were made in the Magistrates Courts as in Crown Courts.6

8.Financial Costs

Correspondence from the Home Office to Mark Oaten MP, Liberal Democrat Home Affairs Spokes Person, in February and March 2004, show that the cost of electronic monitoring of individuals was in excess of £1,700 per person. The Home Office revealed at the same time that the cost of installing the equipment was £150 per unit. Other parliamentary questions show that 83% of offenders completed their tagged curfews with no problems. The average length of a curfew tag is 95 days with 52 days for the home detention curfew (Parliamentary Answer to Mark Oaten 10.12.03). The cost of the kit, according Elmotech, one of the main suppliers, is £700. The kit can be used indefinitely and certainly a minimum of 5 times (Parliamentary Answer to Cheryl Gillan MP 01/02/05).

The average cost of a call out is between £50 and £200, while the cost of removing the kit is roughly the same. The cost, therefore, to the private companies of administering a violated tag is no more than £600. However, the Home Office pays nearly 3 times that amount for each order.

During the summer of 2003, the national Probation Directorate wrote to certain Probation Areas urging them to make greater use of curfews as the Probation caseload was at its limits. This request was acceded to and approximately 6,000 orders were made in the next 6 months. However, the additional cost to the Probation Service led to nearly a £20 million overspend by March 2004.

The advice was subsequently withdrawn. It currently costs £3080 to supervise an individual on a community order compared to £6,500 for a curfew tag, based on annual figures. Unfortunately, figures are not collated centrally on the number of call outs, and therefore the number of violations, whilst an individual is on the tag.

The total amount spent on home detention curfews up to October 2004 has been at least £170 million. The total cost of curfew orders for 2001, 2002 and 2003 is around £56 million. Yet parole supervision could have been extended by 2-3 months without the additional cost of electronic monitoring with the same breach rates. Those curfewed could have been placed on community orders at half the cost of electronic monitoring. The taxpayer could therefore have saved up to £110 million during the period and the outcomes would probably have been better.

9.Reconviction Rates

Home Office figures for February 2005 show that 75% of juveniles, that is 10-17-year-olds are reconvicted within 12 months of completion of a tagged order. This compares to a 69% reconviction rate of those sentenced to a period in a Young Offenders Institution.7

10.Problems and Complaints

In November 2004, Reliance, one of the 3 providers of electronic monitoring, lost its contract to tag individuals in the South West and Thames Corridor. There are now just 2 companies involved in tagging, Securicor and Premier Monitoring Services. Reliance lost its contract on the same day that a tagged individual was jailed for murdering a homeless elderly woman in Devon. Since that time a number of complaints have been made by Probation staff about the service provided by the tagging companies. These complaints have included:

Delay in fitting the tag
Poor communication between the company, the Courts and Probation
Violations not being brought to court
Technical failure
The fact that breaches are not routinely monitored.

Two cases were reported from Gloucestershire and Wiltshire in January this year where the first offender breached the tag on 29 occasions and the second 34 times before being ordered back to Court. Most of the absences were for about 15 minutes but some were for an hour or more. Among the reasons given for the absences were that a bicycle had broken down, the offender had been caught in the rain, and that the offender was helping out a neighbour with a problem. It seems that these excuses were accepted by the tagging companies. Probation staff felt that offenders were developing an attitude where they thought that nothing would happen if they failed to carry out the conditions of the order. Other staff have reported that by the time offenders were brought back to court their orders had finished. There does not appear to be any communication about violations between the private companies and the Police.

In a third case from the South West an offender violated on 17 occasions including two absences for the full 12 hours, another was for several hours, before a warrant was issued and he was taken back to court. Several other offenders in the South West have recalled that the tag was not fitted for 2 to 3 days following conviction.

Court officers in London say that routinely those subjected to a breach of an electronically monitored curfew order are not punished at all. The reason seems to be that by the time they are brought back to court the order has passed its completion date and Magistrates feel that to continue with the breach proceedings would not be in the best interests of justice.

11.Conclusion

Electronic monitoring has been in existence for 10 years. The number of curfew orders made now exceeds 17,000 per year. According to the Home Office it is likely that the number of curfew orders will double as a result of measures contained in the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which came into force on 4 April 2005.

The number released on home detention curfew between December 1999 and October 2004 was 101,806. The daily total has fallen since the peak of December 2004 to 3,350 at the end of March 2005.

However, electronic monitoring is extraordinarily expensive. It costs twice as much to tag somebody as to supervise them by a member of the Probation Service. Napo believes it would be timely for the National Audit Office to examine the contract between the Home Office and the Private Companies.

The number of violations prior to breach reported by Probation staff is extremely worrying. Napo believes this calls into question the integrity of that part of the scheme. It is of concern that there is no routine monitoring of the violation of orders. It is also worrying that more juveniles are reconvicted within 12 months of the end of a tagged order than after a period in a young offender institution. Napo believes that there is still no evidence to suggest that tagging reduces crime. Napo also believes rather than expand the scheme the time is right for politicians to re-evaluate the cost, usefulness and effectiveness of electronic monitoring.

Finally, both home detention curfews and curfew orders could have been replaced by additional parole and community orders and saved the Government over £110 million without compromising public safety.

Harry Fletcher - April 2005 BRF08-05

1. Electronic Monitoring of Offenders, Key Developments – Buchanan,

Hughes, Collett and Bhui, Napo Monograph No 5 2004.

2. Electronic Monitoring of Offenders, Key Developments – Buchanan,

Hughes, Collett and Bhui, Napo Monograph No 5 2004.

3. Electronic Monitoring, Trial of Community Orders 1995 – Home Office May 1994.

4. Napo News 145 January 2003

5. Napo News 163 October 2004

6. Probation Statistics 2001, 2002, 2003

7. Juvenile Reconvictions: Results from the 2003 Cohort – Home Office 18/02/05