'Transforming electronic monitoring services': for what purpose?
Today’s report by the Public Accounts Committee paints an alarming picture of government failures in managing electronic monitoring (EM) services in criminal justice.
Its detailed analysis and criticisms are extensive: nearly £100 million of public funds have been wasted on the failure to deliver a new case management system. Remedial work on the current creaking system will incur extra costs. The implications of ‘real-time’ monitoring data access for police remain to be explored.
A striking finding is the weakness of the evidence base for the planned expansion of EM.
The Ministry and HMPPS still do not know what works and for who, and whether tagging reduces reoffending… Despite the lack of evaluation, government is pressing ahead with its £1.2 billion programme to expand tagging to another 10,000 people in the next three years.’
As the Committee notes, these concerns are not new: the New Generation electronic monitoring programme was beset by a similar level of ineptitude. In our evidence to the Public Accounts Committee inquiry, the only written evidence the Committee published, we highlighted the systemic failings in the EM programme. We also called for the appointment of a regulator with an ethical and practical mission of ensuring that only appropriate services are provided, in the public interest.
At a time when there is so much for them to grapple with, it would be tempting for criminal justice practitioners and observers to assume that the failings exist in some faraway management bubble, with few implications for people under supervision, or their families.
In reality, the expansion of EM being planned is due to create a new world of electronic supervision supplementary to the prison system, unguided by firm evidence about any positive role in rehabilitation. Importantly, in effect, EM recruits families, friends, and even employers of the supervisees as part of its process, with uncertain results.
It is time for anyone who cares about positive and constructive criminal justice measures to pay attention to what the Public Accounts Committee has laid out in forensic detail.
The whiff of scandal over EM should be a wake-up call for a much more informed and wide-ranging discussion, developing a platform for reform which delimits a place for EM in a modest, humane and purposeful system.