Abstract
HMI Probation conducted a 2012 inspection into the management of electronically monitored curfews as a followup to its 2008 inspection ‘A Complicated Business’. The inspection report has been published at a time when ‘the use of Court ordered curfews has more than doubled in the past six years’, (p. 5). The report provides possible explanations for this such as increased public confidence in community sentences and the companies who provide an electronic monitoring (EM) service. The economics of including EM in a sentence, and the lack of research into the effectiveness of EM curfews, is highlighted. The paper reports that since 2005/06 renewed contracts with EM companies has resulted in lower costs for the use of electronic monitoring.
The follow up inspection revisited areas that were investigated in 2008 (Essex, Derbyshire, Kent and Staffordshire Probation Areas) and looked at community cases where electronic monitoring forms part of the community sentence and Home Detention Curfew (HDC) cases, whereby an offender serves part of a Licence on HDC or where a HDC suitability assessment is made by the probation service for an offender sentenced to imprisonment with no supervision. The following findings were presented in the report in relation to community cases: the 2008 inspection found that 90 per cent of community orders with an electronically monitored curfew requirement had been imposed following the completion of a pre-sentence report (PSR), however in 2012 this percentage had fallen to 29 per cent. A concern is raised in the report that information held by the probation service may not be being accessed by the courts prior to sentencing and that a lack of background information on the defendants’ home circumstances may result in an EM curfew being used inappropriately, for example in a situation where there is a domestic violence concern in the home address of the offender. The inspection found that, unlike in 2008, most HDC reports by the probation service are now completed after a telephone call, rather than home visit to the prisoner’s address to check the suitability of the home situation and the report considered that this assessment could be made by the releasing prison instead.
New forms, used by courts and EM companies to update each other on information about offenders recommended by the 2008 inspection, were found to be used in 2012 but not as consistently as hoped and this was found to have caused significant problems in ensuring EM curfew violation information was correct and appropriate enforcement action was taken. Unclear presentation of information was found to lead to uncertainty for EM companies about who was the responsible officer for the offender and if the EM curfew was part of a multiple requirement order or not. The 2012 inspection also found that the stringency of enforcement thresholds had not been amended to allow flexibility depending on the individual case, as was recommended as a result of the 2008 inspection. The paper highlights that this could result in an offender not being present at the EM curfew address for 11 hours and 59 minutes of a 12 hour curfew and only trigger a ‘less serious’ violation with the EM company. However, despite these difficulties enforcement action was found to be taken in a timely manner by EM companies.
The inspection report concluded that EM curfews are primarily used as ‘punishment and restriction’, and had not been incorporated successfully into sentence planning and the report argues that the use of EM curfews as a tool to reduce reoffending is unproven at present.