Burglars released from prison to be fitted with trackers

The policing minister has revealed that all burglars released from prison are to be fitted with GPS tags so they can be tracked 24/7. 

 

Kit Malthouse said he wanted freed burglars to be tagged so police forces could check every burglary in their area against the movements of those tagged to see if they could be suspects. 

 

He said a change in the law would mean police and probation could request and enforce the tagging as a condition of their licence, so the released offenders could have their location tracked to within feet every minute of the day. Refusing to wear the tag would be a breach of their licence, returning them to prison. 

 

In what ministers believe would be a major deterrent to reoffending the order could cover the entire period of their licence so a burglar released halfway through a four-year jail term could be tagged for a further two years.

 

"By adjusting the law – we can do it by statutory instrument – it will then allow us to put the tag on every burglar's ankle for a period after their release on licence," said Mr Malthouse. "In simple terms, it can tell all police forces whether a former burglar has been in their area and they can match it up with burglary data. Fifty per cent of burglaries are done by former burglars. It should be a major deterrent to them going out and plying their previous trade."

 

With the intention being to trial the move by six forces Mr Malthouse said he wanted the tagging to be a blanket policy so that "everybody who has a burglary conviction gets GPS tagged". The GPS tagging could be extended to other "geographically-based" crimes such as muggers. Probation, police and the courts are currently using around 1000 GPS tags, largely to enforce "exclusion zones" around victims of domestic violence and sexual offences, and to prevent violent criminals from working with their former associate.

 

Mr Malthouse said he did not believe it would be a breach of human rights as the principle was established with tagging for home detention curfews and alcohol intake. It protected the public and offered an alternative for an offender to return to prison. When in charge of policing in London, nearly 10 years ago under the former mayor Boris Johnson, Mr Malthouse pioneered sobriety ankle tags which use technology to regularly test an offender's alcohol levels in their skin, an initiative which is due to be extended nationwide after successful trials. Mr Malthouse said the pilot trials had shown it needed to be applied for extended periods to break the cycle of criminality.

 

The plan was welcomed by the victims' commissioner Dame Vera Baird who said, "Burglaries can be a traumatic terrible crime. Anything that reduces it and deters burglars from committing it is a good thing. But GPS tracking can also be used in many other offences such as domestic abuse and sexual violence and hopefully the Government will go beyond just burglaries and look at those crimes."

 

The Johnson Partnership

Nottingham Solicitors