The suspicion has long been held that the MoJ basically feels that tagging everyone would be a really easy and cheap way of reducing crime and 'supervising' offenders. The trouble is it's not cheap; the technology isn't that good and nobody knows if it's actually effective. Of course the MoJ has quite a track record on poor contract writing and wasting public money through IT failures, but are very effective in lining the pockets of huge private sector corporations. The Centre for Crime and Justice Studies are on the tagging case though:-
The Centre for Crime and Justice today called for the use of electronic monitoring (so-called “tagging”) as part of a criminal justice sanction to be based on proper evidence and guided by clear principles.
The call came in response to today’s report by the Public Accounts Committee, which paints an alarming picture of government failure and waste.
According to the Public Accounts Committee, 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 Ministry of Justice, the Committee notes, still does not know what works, or whether tagging reduces reoffending. Yet it plans to press ahead with a £1.2 billion programme, expanding tagging to an additional 10,000 people over the next three years.
Dr Roger Grimshaw, Research Director at the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, said:
"Today’s report by the Public Accounts Committee paints an alarming picture of government failures in managing electronic monitoring.
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.
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.”
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.
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From the Public Accounts Committee website:-
“Avoidable” mistakes in tagging programme “wasted £98 million of taxpayers’ money”
In a report the Public Accounts Committee says a “high-risk and over-complicated delivery model, poor oversight of suppliers, overambitious timetable and light-touch scrutiny from the Ministry of Justice” all contributed to the failure of a new case management system for electronic monitoring of offenders which has “cost taxpayers dear”.
The Committee says “avoidable mistakes” wasted £98 million of taxpayers’ money and left the tagging service “reliant on legacy systems that needed urgent remedial action, costing a further £9.8 million”.
Even after this, the Ministry of Justice and HMPPS still “do not know what works and for who, and whether tagging reduces reoffending”. Despite the lack of knowledge and evaluation, government is pressing ahead with a £1.2 billion programme to expand tagging to another 10,000 people in the next three years.
Given the “long history of poor performance in this area” the Committee is “unconvinced” that the MoJ is equipped to handle emerging problems and will continue to monitor the “serious risks” that remain for the expansion of tagging and the need to procure new contracts by early 2024.
Chair's comments
Dame Meg Hillier MP, Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, said:
“The prison and probation service is reliant on outdated technology that is swallowing taxpayers’ money just to stand still. The existing system is at constant risk of failure – and let us be clear that in the case of tagging, “failure” can mean direct and preventable risk to the public – and attempts to transform it have failed.
The incredible scale of waste and loss in the Government’s Covid response should in no way inure us to this: that’s another hundred million pounds of taxpayers’ money for essential public services just thrown away, wasted, lost. We expect a serious explanation, and a serious plan, from the MoJ and Government more widely how they are going to stop this haemorrhaging of taxpayers’ money that they are presiding over. We need assurances up front over the further £1.2 billion they have already committed to the tagging programme – what will be achieved, by when, and, crucially, what will be recovered for the public if goals aren’t met.”
Summary
HM Prison & Probation Service’s (HMPPS) transformation programme for electronic monitoring (‘tagging’) has failed to transform the service as intended. HMPPS launched the programme to improve efficiency and increase the usefulness of tagging for police and probation services, but after significant setbacks and delays the failure has cost taxpayers dear. Its high-risk and over-complicated delivery model, poor oversight of suppliers, overambitious timetable and light-touch scrutiny from the Ministry of Justice all contributed to its failure to introduce a new case management system, which underpinned the intended benefits and transformation. These avoidable mistakes wasted £98 million of taxpayers’ money and left the tagging service reliant on legacy systems that needed urgent remedial action, costing a further £9.8 million.
It is unacceptable that, despite our previous recommendations, the Ministry and HMPPS still do not have sufficient data to understand the outcomes of tagging and that police forces and the Probation Service continue to lack timely access to the high-quality data they need to monitor offenders and keep the public safe. The Ministry and HMPPS still do not know what works and for who, and whether tagging reduces reoffending. HMPPS has committed to improving access to data and evaluating its new tagging expansion projects, but appears unambitious about the level of insight that it expects to achieve.
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. It has harnessed innovative technology to deliver new projects—such as in its alcohol monitoring scheme and acquisitive crime pilot—where early progress has yielded some encouraging results. However, although HMPPS has identified lessons from the failure of its transformation programme, there remain serious risks associated with its expansion of tagging and the need to procure new contracts by early 2024. Given the long history of poor performance in this area, we remain unconvinced that it is sufficiently well-equipped to handle emerging problems and will continue to monitor developments for the foreseeable future.
A bit of old news re-tagging:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.channel4.com/news/g4s-serco-electronic-monitoring-tagging-probation
https://www.nao.org.uk/reports/the-ministry-of-justices-electronic-monitoring-contracts/
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jul/10/g4s-fined-44m-by-serious-office-over-electronic-tagging
So many AP residents are having tags now especially alcohol tags
ReplyDelete"Whiff of scandal"?
ReplyDeleteIt absolutely stinks of corruption and incompetence. And at its heart the relentless ideological pursuit of marketising justice. While Probation is wrecked and stripped of resources, huge sums are being ...diverted, let's say.
Most probation staff dont know how to read the data, so complete waste of time and money.
ReplyDeleteIt has been long known that tagging is expensive and doesn’t cut crime. GPS tracking, AAMR, these are measures to divert taxpayers money into private business. IOM is one of the biggest culprits, probation was silly buddying up with the police who have hands all over tagging companies and then take credit for any probation successes.
ReplyDeletehttps://amp.theguardian.com/uk/2012/sep/24/tagging-failed-cut-reoffending
Nearly £1bn has been spent on the electronic tagging of criminals over the past 13 years with little effect on cutting offending rates, offering little value for money and serving only to enrich two or three private security companies, one of which is G4S, a senior police officer has claimed.
DeleteChris Miller, a former expert on tagging at the Association of Chief Police Officers, who stood down as Hertfordshire's assistant chief constable last year, said that much of the potential of electronic monitoring to keep communities safe in Britain has not been realised.
"The current contracting arrangements for electronic monitoring have all but squeezed innovation out of the picture and stifled progress," he writes in a foreword to a report by the Policy Exchange thinktank published on Monday.
"Electronic tag technology used in most cases today is hardly any different from what it was in 1989, when it was first used in the UK. The future arrangements must not be allowed to continue to hold us back," writes Miller. He says the problem has centred on a "sclerotic, centrally controlled, top-down system that has enriched two or three large suppliers, that lacks the innovation and flexibility of international comparators and that fails to demonstrate either that it is value for money or that it does anything to reduce offending".
The Ministry of Justice has spent £963m on tagging contracts over the past 13 years. Two companies, Serco and G4S, have taken the bulk of the work, putting ankle and wrist tags on more than 100,000 offenders every year, mainly to monitor their compliance with night-time curfew orders which do little to cut reoffending during the day.
Ministry officials are about to invite bids for contracts for the next nine years, thought to be worth up to £3bn. The Policy Exchange report, Future of Corrections, says one in four police forces regards electronic tagging as ineffective.
"In the US there are a number of localised suppliers, meaning that the police and probation service are given the most up to date GPS technology to track the movements of a criminal 24/7," said Rory Geoghegan, the report's author.
He said in the US ankle bracelets had become smaller, smarter and more durable and were GPS-enabled so that police can pinpoint offenders' locations at all times, but the lack of competition in Britain meant the taxpayer was losing out.
"We desperately need to create a real market so that the police can get the technology they need to cut burglary, cut robbery and other crimes that have a massive impact on victims and community," he said.
Miller said that, as Hertfordshire's head of crime, he had tried satellite tracking technology for prolific offenders, polygraph testing of internet child pornography users, and alcohol diversion programmes for those caught drunk in public places. But each initiative had been greeted in Whitehall with reactions ranging from incredulity to downright obstruction.
DeleteThe Policy Exchange pamphlet argues that the police and crime commissioners due to be elected in November should be given the power to decide how much money, if any, is spent on tagging and who should provide the services.
Instead of a £1.2 billion programme to expand the tagging failure to another 10,000 offenders, they could give them all a flat, healthcare and income, a good percentage would probably never commit crime again.
ReplyDeleteAt £120,000 each that may be a flat in Bradford, Middlesbrough or Grimsby, but whose complaining.
DeleteBackawhile before we were all being monitored and micromanaged, I had a client who had committed yet another burglary. His order was packed with invterventions. Early on, it became clear that a) he couldnt read or write b} he believed he was doomed to the cycle he was in c) he clicked with the resident - in the office- literacy and numeracy trainer.
DeleteBecause, in that regime, I could, I just ignored all the requirements and kept championing him through the learning. He eventually became a plumber with a business, partner and kids, with all previous (of which there were many) expired. In a sane Probation, we would save our assessments for about three months down the line, and then be flexible and humane in our approach. (In the current vernacular "strengths based") But where is the space for that when the assessment is on the day, the work is outsourced? #therapeuticallicances
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