Spotlight on…
Electronic Monitoring
October 2021
This spotlight illuminates the work of our Electronic Monitoring (EM) colleagues, who are riding high on the great news announced recently by our Secretary of State that EM would receive £183m funding for Electronic Monitoring expansion projects.
Here’s what the team say…
A very busy year
The investment news came on the back of a very busy year, during which time we have been working hard with our suppliers, in particular the Electronic Monitoring Service (EMS), to keep the service running during the challenges of the pandemic, while expanding the services we offer. For example:
Alcohol Monitoring tags
roll-out
Thanks to fantastic support from HMPPS colleagues, we completed the rollout of Alcohol Monitoring tags across England and Wales. Take up has been great, with more than 1,700 orders imposed to date and sober day rate running at an excellent 97%.
Probation colleagues have told us this new tool is incredibly useful, but the best bit of feedback we have had is from a tag wearer who told us that after 10 years of problem drinking the tag “saved my life” allowing him to see a light at the end of the tunnel.
Tagging at the point of release
On behalf of the Home Office, and with thanks to excellent support from Prison colleagues, we began tagging foreign national offenders at the point of release from Prison/Immigration removal centres.
This process builds on the processes developed for the End of Custody Temporary Release (ECTR) scheme introduced as a temporary measure at the start of the Covid Pandemic.
Acquisitive Crime Project expansion
With great support from probation and police colleagues, we expanded our Acquisitive Crime Project to 19 police force areas, which is making GPS Trail Monitoring compulsory for acquisitive criminals sentenced to 12 months custody.
The project is aligned to Integrated Offender Management, bringing closer working relationships with probation and Police to identify, mitigate and manage risk – enhanced by a crime mapping service for police and a self-service portal to allow probation colleagues to analyse an offender’s movements.
What’s to come
We still have lots more to come, including:
- Introducing a new contractual pricing mechanism for our suppliers to deliver better VfM.
- Expanding the use of alcohol monitoring to those leaving prison. Alcohol Monitoring on licence will offer the option of total abstinence or monitoring an offender’s alcohol intake. We are launching a pathfinder in Wales on 17 Nov. Roll-out to England will follow in Summer 2022.
- EMS & the Met will be piloting a four-night intensification process at the end of November, to test to what extent closer working can improve numbers and rate of arrests for bail breaches.
- Running a new phase of court outreach. Starting soon, we will be targeting 20 high volume courts where EM usage is well below average. We will be refreshing EM messaging, with emphasis on the flexible capabilities of Radio Frequency (RF) and GPS.
- Working on ways to more closely align with Probation, ensuring there’s clear routes between Probation, HMPPS EM team and EMS at a strategic and local level.
- Carrying out work to stabilise the EM Current Service to ensure it can continue to run smoothly and can be scaled to support the expected increase in numbers of individuals on tag.
- Working with all our stakeholders to scope the future EM service for when current contracts end in 2024. We are putting you (our stakeholders) at the heart of planning to ensure we are defining the outcomes and experiences you want to deliver, and to work out how these can be best realised through the procurement approach and future operating model.
Further out on the horizon the excitement will continue, we have new capabilities being introduced via the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, a new pilot launching in the North East to test the use of EM for licence variation, and our new Innovation Fund will get underway
Thank you
As we always say, EM is worthless unless it is in the hands of front line practitioners, so on all of the above we will be reaching out through the usual channels to provide you with the details, give you the opportunity to kick the tyres on our plans and we will work in partnership to make sure the new changes we introduce are a success.
Thanks for the incredible support you have given us so far, and we look forward to continuing our journey together.
If you have any questions on any of this or anything EM related we would love to hear from you at EMChange@Justice.gov.uk
The EM Team