Doubts rise over Electronic Monitoring Tags
Pastor Dale Morgan
Doubts rise over Electronic Monitoring Tags*
By John Steele, Crime Correspondent
Last Updated: 2:07am BST 25/07/2007
[BBC] Breaches of court-imposed bail curfews involving electronic tags
quadrupled last year while attempts to remove or tamper with them nearly
doubled, according to new figures.
The statistics have raised fears that thousands of criminal suspects,
who would normally be remanded in custody, are being granted bail under
electronic monitoring in an attempt to ease overcrowding in jails.
In the year 2005 to 2006, private security companies who monitor tagged
suspects reported 11,435 breaches of the conditions imposed by courts,
primarily night-time curfews. But in the year to March 2007, the total
number of reported breaches rose to 43,843, according to statistics from
the Ministry of Justice, which deals with courts and prisoners in
England and Wales.
In 2005 to 2006, there were 1,073 "deliberate tag tampers (including
removals)". That figure rose by 80 per cent last year to 1,942 incidents.
The ministry was unable to say how many of the breaches had been
punished with bail being revoked.
Courts have been urged in the past year to use bail with tags as an
alternative to custody.
The Tories said the huge increases in breaches and tampering reflected
the dangers of giving tag-based bail to inappropriate suspects.