My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, for giving me the opportunity to return to this important topic. I should also like to thank all noble Lords for their contributions as we move on.
Electronic monitoring using radio frequency technology has been used nationally as a key element of our criminal justice system for almost 20 years. It has proved to be an effective tool to manage offenders’ compliance with curfew requirements. In any one year, 60,000 people are so monitored and at any one time there are around 11,000 subjects monitored on curfew. For those released on prison licence, legislation also allows for the subject’s location to be monitored either to support a requirement of the licence or to monitor an offender’s whereabouts. The latter is referred to as a stand-alone location monitoring requirement; that is, it is not linked to another requirement.
Furthermore, legislation already exists to permit location monitoring to be used as part of court bail or a community sentence to monitor compliance with a requirement such as an exclusion zone. The order before your Lordships’ House today, which has already been debated in the Moses Room, seeks to commence legislation that will allow courts to impose a stand-alone location monitoring requirement as part of a community sentence when it is considered to be appropriate, proportionate and necessary to do so. Using an electronic GPS tag, an offender’s location will be tracked by satellite using technology similar to that of a satnav. The ankle tag will record the offender’s position and, at frequent intervals, send that data to a monitoring centre via a mobile network. The location data will be retrospective.
The case for stand-alone location monitoring has been supported by two pilots, the first of which was run by the Ministry of Justice and the second by the London Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime, or MOPAC. The first pilot ran for 18 months across Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Leicestershire, Staffordshire and the West Midlands. Of the 586 subjects that were tagged, 161 were given a stand-alone location monitoring requirement. Of those, 107 also had an electronically monitored curfew. The tagging was considered to be necessary and proportionate by a court, or a prison governor, having due regard to advice from probation practitioners. The remainder of the subjects had location monitoring imposed to monitor compliance with another requirement; for example, an exclusion zone.
The second, smaller-scale pilot run by MOPAC in the London area was initially intended to run for 18 months, but has now been extended for a further 18 months and will conclude in September 2019. As at the end of October, 100 of the 104 community-sentenced subjects in the MOPAC pilot have been given a stand-alone location monitoring requirement by courts and more are expected. This indicates that decision-makers recognise the benefits of using stand-alone location monitoring in the right circumstances. Indeed, criminal justice boards in the areas included in the first pilot were very keen to see a continuation of location monitoring in general and wrote letters of support.
This has been mirrored by feedback received from offender managers and some offenders during both pilots. That feedback indicates that stand-alone location monitoring provides offender managers with more information on offenders’ movements, allowing for constructive conversations to take place regarding their behaviour, helping to manage the risk of reoffending, aid rehabilitation and help those they supervise to lead law-abiding lives. It can motivate subjects to engage in their rehabilitation, attend addiction therapies, turn up for work or training and to stay away from those people and places that would have a negative influence on their lives. In some cases, it could also provide enough assurance to enable courts to impose a community sentence as an alternative to custody, thereby reducing prison numbers. Let me read to you a comment received from one offender:
“It’s the fact that you can continue to provide support for the people that you care for and you can still work, you can still be around, you can still be a brother, a friend, you can still be a dad. You can still be all those things whilst on GPS that you can’t if you’re in custody”.
This feedback is supported by the independent evaluation of the first pilot, conducted by NatCen Social Research, which will be published shortly. One of the key findings is that partner agencies, probation, police, prisons and courts were keen to use location monitoring to help monitor and manage compliance with bail, sentence and licence conditions. The report highlights that location monitoring was felt to support the effective management of offenders in the community in four key ways: supporting offender rehabilitation; facilitating risk management; helping to inform decisions about whether a wearer should be recalled to custody or court; and providing evidence either to exonerate them or to link them to a crime.
Lessons have been learned from both this pilot and that of MOPAC, as well as from MOPAC’s ongoing pilot, to inform the implementation of the new electronic monitoring service. Those lessons have been incorporated into the ministry’s programme for delivery. For example, subjects reported issues with keeping the tag charged. As a result, the tag will come with a portable charger and subjects will receive alerts when their tag’s battery needs charging. The new service will have an initial phased release at the end of 2018 in the north-west and the Midlands, which will start to introduce at scale the availability of GPS tags. That will be augmented by a further release in the summer of 2019, providing greater functionality for service users, including a portal where updates and alerts can be viewed online.
This order builds on legislation which is already in place regarding electronic monitoring. The pilots have worked well and are working well, and we look forward to seeing GPS tagging in the right circumstances as soon as it is appropriate. I beg to move.
Amendment to the Motion