Tag 'Em All!

I noticed the following on Twitter from Rob Allen:-

The Compulsory Electronic Monitoring Licence Condition Order 2021 is published https://legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2021/330/made…plus an impact assessment https://legislation.gov.uk/ukia/2021/14/pdfs/ukia_20210014_en.pdf…

This requires prisoners released on licence to wear a GPS tag if sentenced for >12 months for theft burglary or robbery. It comes into force in 6 areas on 12 April though MPs can object until 12 May. Call me old fashioned but IMO this deserves more scrutiny but v small beer compared to COVID regs I suppose. But important questions about what exactly is being monitored and why. And consent. 

The IA says that GPS tagging unlikely to be possible for 30% of acquisitive offenders who are unsettled on release from custody. Just an idea but maybe use the funds to settle them instead? Govt has no idea if it will work. It may improve compliance & reduce recall to prison, but "it is also plausible that the increased ability to detect poor behaviour & the need for the offender to keep the tag charged may increase the likelihood of recall for tag wearers". 

Apparently police forces will be able to access a crime mapping service which could help to rule suspects in and out of investigations, improve crime outcomes and potentially increase the conviction rate for acquisitive crimes. This is still being procured. The IA says there is no significant impact on families although claims that tagging may improve family relationships . Maybe if it keeps people out of prison but that doesn't seem the main idea here. I am not sure what is though.

Rob Allen

--oo00oo--

Impact Assessment

What is the problem under consideration? Why is government action or intervention necessary? 

Acquisitive offenders (offenders which derive material gain from a crime, such as burglary, theft and robbery) have amongst the highest levels of reoffending across all offence types: 51% of those convicted of theft (including burglary) and 29% of those convicted of robbery reoffend within a year of release compared to 23% in all other cases. In addition, these offenders are often not detected: 79% of theft (including burglary) cases and 62% of robbery cases resulted in no suspect being identified compared to 24% in all other cases. 

At present, there is limited robust evidence on the effectiveness of electronic monitoring internationally. In England and Wales, evidence on electronic monitoring on licence (following release from custody) is particularly limited given low levels of usage currently. Introducing a project that will test the compulsory satellite enabled (GPS) tagging of acquisitive offenders, in a limited number of areas, will allow the government to understand whether this technology could 1) have a deterrent effect, reducing reoffending and protecting neighbourhoods from further acquisitive crime and 2) support the detection and prosecution of these offences through data sharing arrangements with the police. Government intervention is needed because this project requires secondary legislation. Initial legislation will restrict the power to 6 of 43 Police Force Areas (PFAs) and will only apply to offences listed where the offender has been sentenced to a standard determinate sentence (SDS) of 12 months or more. Further legislation is planned to be laid in future to expand the measure to further PFAs, at which point this Impact Assessment (IA) will be updated accordingly.

What are the policy objectives of the action or intervention and the intended effects? 

The objective is to test the effects of GPS tagging of acquisitive offenders on release from custody. The increased use of this technology could support police detection of further offences and/or act as a deterrent, therefore reducing acquisitive crimes, reducing reoffending, providing greater public protection and improving public confidence. The project will be evaluated and findings will be published. As a result, introducing this intervention in a limited number of areas will help inform the ongoing use of this measure and future policy decisions regarding further roll-out. It will also help refine effective and efficient partnership working, and provide information on the impact of GPS tagging on proven reoffending rates and crime detection.

What policy options have been considered, including any alternatives to regulation? 

Please justify preferred option (further details in Evidence Base) 

• Option 0: Do nothing. 

• Option 1: Legislate to enable the compulsory GPS tagging of certain acquisitive offenders as a licence condition, on release from prison in specific geographical areas. 

The Government’s preferred option is option 1 as this best meets the policy objectives.

Evidence Base 

A. Background 

1. Acquisitive crime refers to offending where the offender derives material gain from the crime (i.e. burglary, theft, and robbery). Acquisitive offenders have one of the highest reoffending rates amongst all offence types: 51% of all adults convicted of theft (including burglary) and 29% of all adults convicted of robbery are proven to reoffended within a year of release; this compares to a proven reoffending rate of 23% for all other offences. In addition, these offenders are often not detected: 79% of theft (including burglary) cases and 62% of robbery cases resulted in no suspect being identified in the year ending June 2020, compared to 24% in all other cases. 

2. Currently, if an acquisitive offender is sentenced to custody they are likely to receive a Standard Determinate Sentence (SDS) and the majority will be released from custody at the half-way point or earlier if they are eligible for Home Detention Curfew (HDC). They then serve the remainder of their sentence in the community under probation supervision and are subject to licence conditions which can place restrictions on their movements, associations or activities, or prescribe activities. The offender must comply with their licence conditions to avoid facing a return to custody. 

3. Electronic monitoring (EM) has long been used as a criminal justice tool. HDC has been running since 1999 with offenders released early from prison subject to an electronically monitored curfew. EM has been used to assure compliance with curfews for community orders, suspended sentence orders and Court imposed bail for many years. Since 2019, satellite enabled location monitoring (GPS tagging) has also been available for assuring compliance with exclusion zones; ‘standalone location monitoring’ – trail monitoring – which does not assure compliance with another condition but tracks the movements of the offender, is also available. Many police forces also use GPS tags with known offenders on a voluntary basis to support their efforts to prevent and detect crime. 

4. There is, however, currently still limited evidence from England and Wales on the effectiveness of EM in relation to reoffending. An impact evaluation conducted by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) in 2011 on the effectiveness of HDC revealed no significant differences in reoffending between offenders released early with an electronically-monitored curfew and offenders not eligible for early release on HDC and thus remaining in custody.

5 However, this issue has not been evaluated again in more recent years. The MoJ has also published two process evaluation reports on the use of GPS tagging with various cohorts of offenders.

6 The findings revealed that GPS location monitoring was felt to support the effective management of offenders through supporting offender rehabilitation, facilitating risk management, informing decisions about whether a wearer should be recalled to custody or court, and providing evidence to either exonerate a wearer or link them to a crime. The levels of compliance amongst wearers were generally thought to be good. However, no impact evaluation was conducted on levels of reoffending due to small sample sizes within groups and difficulties in obtaining a robust comparison group.

5. International evidence on the impact of EM on reoffending and other outcomes is also limited and can be inconsistent. There are relatively few studies that reliably measure impact, and those that follow robust analytical methods suggest that the impact of EM is heavily context-dependent. There is some evidence to indicate that EM is an effective tool for improving compliance in acquisitive offenders on community sentences, however, there is limited evidence on the impacts of GPS tagging for those on licence. 

6. The existing evidence on EM can, however, be contextualised in a wider body of ‘deterrence’ research. Whilst evidence on the impact of severity-based deterrence strategies is mixed, increases in the certainty of apprehension and punishment have consistently been found to have a deterrent effect. Therefore, EM may deter future offending by increasing the likelihood of being caught. 

7. Against this background, there is clearly scope for the increased use of EM whilst also increasing the evidence base associated with its use. This Impact Assessment (IA) therefore assesses the option of introducing compulsory GPS tagging of acquisitive offenders serving a custodial sentence of 12 months or more on release from custody in a limited number of police force areas. 

B. Rationale and Policy Objectives 

Rationale 

8. The conventional economic approaches to Government intervention are based on efficiency or equity arguments. Governments may consider intervening if there are strong enough failures in the way markets operate (e.g., monopolies overcharging consumers) or there are strong enough failures in existing Government interventions (e.g. waste generated by misdirected rules) where the proposed new interventions avoid creating a further set of disproportionate costs and distortions. The Government may also intervene for equity (fairness) and distributional reasons (e.g., to reallocate goods and services to more vulnerable groups in society). 

9. The primary rationale for intervention in this instance is efficiency: Government intervention through this legislation could increase our knowledge of the effectiveness of EM for acquisitive offenders on licence. Legislation would allow for the testing of GPS tagging to improve our understanding of potential impacts on deterrence from future offending, crime detection, compliance with other licence conditions and reoffending, as well as being able to assess the potential of trail monitoring data to support offender management of risk and rehabilitation. 

Policy Objectives 

10. The introduction of mandatory GPS tagging for acquisitive offenders aims to: 

a. Act as a deterrent to future reoffending: acquisitive offenders have high rates of reoffending; the use of this technology could ensure greater compliance with licence conditions and inform offender management, also because the associated trail monitoring data can be shared with the police to assist investigations, this may also have a deterrent effect. 

b. Assist police investigations into acquisitive crimes through targeted data sharing: the police will be able to request previously unavailable trail monitoring data as a result of this project – this could help to rule suspects in and out of investigations, potentially increasing the conviction rate for acquisitive crimes and potentially saving police resources. 

c. Further develop the evidence base on the effectiveness of EM: there are significant limitations with the current evidence base for EM, particularly for the use of EM on licence; this project will allow for a robust evaluation to be undertaken.