Another Prisoner Tagging scheme failure

Scottish courts have been able to impose tagging orders(or more correctly Restriction of Liberty Order under Section 245A of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995) since May 2002.This is done under contract to Reliance Monitoring Servives Ltd.,

In 2004-5, a total of 1,335 tagging orders were handed out and 770 failures to comply were recorded. Between April 2005 and March 2006, a total of 965 Orders 987 failures - 22 more than the number of tags handed out.

A Restriction of Liberty Order requires an offender to be:

* restricted to a specific place for a maximum period of 12 hours per day for up to a maximum of 12 months;
* and/or from a specified place or places for 24 hours a day for up to 12 months.

Offenders will be aged 16 or over and must consent to the Order. The Court must find out relevant information about the places involved and the attitudes of the people living there. Outwith the hours of restriction an offender is free to go where he/she chooses.

The Executive has extended tagging ( see Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003) and insists it is not a 'soft option' and last night were reported saying that its figures showed the monitoring system was working effectively.

Norman Brennan, director of the Victims of Crime Trust, said: "These figures bring tagging into disrepute. We have never supported electronic tagging - it is just another excuse not to send someone to prison or to release them early."

Those readers with long memories may remember the wizard wheeze of Home Secretary Minister Blunkett ( not the last one, the fat , bleary eyed thickhead blustering Clarke, but philandering cuckold, shameless Blunkett) who introduced the £3MN trial of GPS taggging which then Clarke discovered didn't work - but demanded a media blackout on the report - which did.

They discovered (as any tech savvy teenager would tell you, and as US reserachers had long ago discovered) that the GPS signal, especially in cities with trees, building cover, subways, etc., can be a trifle tricky to the point of non-existent, and as 4 satellite signals are needed for accurate triangulation it wasn't long before Johnny Rotten realised this and was off on his toes.

In 2004 from September to June 178 offenders in Manchester were tracked in the pilot. Only 29 were allowed off satellite tracking after officials considered they successfully completed their rehabilitation programmes.

Another 83 were sent back to jail for breaches of release conditions, although these were not necessarily directly connected with the technology. The other 66 continued to be monitored.

Did the Ministers scrap the barmy, technologically flawed scheme ? Oh No!! Clarke ordered a media blackout and carried on - the leaked report said " "We have not sought to publicise the pilot scheme since its launch in September 2004 due to the risks of negative media coverage of the poor results to date.T here are risks to attracting media attention." For example they might tell the public out there that the scheme doesn't fucking work - and sex offenders are strolling the streets of the Athens of the North.

The Civil Servant writing the report was abright sort , they added ..."Media attention may highlight some of the difficulties with the technology and raise questions about the cost and low throughput of offenders." Too right they would.

In a a memo to Mr Clarke and other senior Home Office Ministers, "You were not prepared to take that risk." (Note the smart Civilese putting the responsibility on the Minister "You were not..." It continued "Press Office strongly advise against any publicity at the current time.".... We recommend that you agree to the proposed extension of the pilot until 31 March 2006."

Mr Blunkett when launching the scheme said it would create a "prison without bars where exclusion orders or curfews could be rigorously enforced. Paedophiles could be banned from approaching schools and wife beaters could be told to stay away from their victims."

He wisely refrained from any remarks about keeping track of errant wives shagging their friendly local Home Secretary being wined and dined by him at Buckingham Palace along withthe President of the United States and having his baby.

There have not been, as far as Lord Patel's staff can discover any further reports, leaked or otherwise, about the scheme.

However this is probably way down Boot Boy Reid's (very) long list of priorities. No wonder Sir John Geive got out of the Home Office and settled down in a nice psotion on Threadneedle Street.