Curfew orders
with electronic monitoring
156. As an alternative to custody, electronic monitoring
("tagging") offers exciting possibilities. It is currently
being used to implement curfew orders and will soon be used for
home detention curfews. Under the Criminal Justice Act 1991, curfew
orders were introduced on a trial basis in Manchester, Norfolk
and Reading in July 1995. Those trials were subsequently extended
to cover the whole of the counties of Greater Manchester and Berkshire
in November 1995 and are progressively being extended to West
Yorkshire, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and the London Boroughs covered
by the Middlesex Probation Service. Curfew orders may last for
up to six months and require an offender to remain at a specified
place, or places, at times set by the court, for between 2 and
12 hours per day. They can be imposed alongside other community
sentences. All curfew orders are monitored electronically, through
a radio transmitter tagged to an offender's ankle or wrist: this
sends signals to a home receiver which is connected to a control
centre through a domestic telephone line. The offender's compliance
is monitored by a private security company under contract to the
Home Office.
157. By the end of the first year of the trials 83
offenders had been tagged; in the second year this figure was
375. By 4 June 1998 the total number of offenders sentenced since
the trials began stood at 1,377, of which 852 sentences had been
completed, 156 had been revoked, 71 had been revoked through breach,[189]
17 had been revoked for other reasons and 364 were still being
monitored.[190] At
the end of the second year of trials, Home Office research stated
that the curfew order remained a 'rarely used sentence', given
to 14 cases per 1,000 in Greater Manchester adult magistrates'
courts.[191]
158. Around two-thirds of curfew orders have been
made in the Manchester area. When the Committee visited Manchester
we met sentencers, police, probation officers and representatives
of Securicor Custodial Sentences, who were awarded the contract
to administer the trials in Manchester; this gave us a very useful
insight into how curfew orders were working on the ground.
159. Mrs Patricia Walmsley, of Securicor, reported
that, at the time of our visit in February 1998, over 700 orders
had so far been made in Greater Manchester, and that at that time
approximately 70 offenders were subject to them. The revocation
rate had been between 20% and 25%, although these were not all
due to people failing to keep their curfews: eg some orders had
been revoked near the end of the order, due to high compliance
rates and/or the success of the offender in finding a job, while
others had moved from the area and so could not continue with
the order. Some of the revocations were due to breaches of the
order by the offender. Where an offender is missing for part of
a curfew period, but not its entirety, they are given a warning.
If they are so absent for a third time, following two warnings,
breach proceedings are taken against them and they are returned
to court. Approximately 80 per cent of offenders received at least
one warning. Should they commit intentional damage against the
tagging equipment, be missing for an entire curfew period, or
use or threaten violence against a Securicor staff member, breach
proceedings are taken regardless of whether the offender has any
previous warnings or not.
160. During our time in Greater Manchester, we also
visited Securicor's monitoring centre at Hulme, where monitoring
goes on continuously. If the offender is not present in the curfew
area, or if the equipment is tampered with, this is picked up
at the monitoring centre within minutes. As we saw for ourselves,
staff at the monitoring centre will then telephone the offenders
to try to ascertain explanations for absences/ equipment tampering.
They will also go to the offenders' homes to establish what the
problem is. Mrs Walmsley explained that, while the equipment is
not yet technically perfect, the system tended to lose contact
with the signals from offenders' monitoring equipment for seconds
at a time only and this allowed for detection of non-attendance
during a curfew period within three minutes of its beginning.
161. Inspector Steve Crimmins of Greater Manchester
Police stated that the police had been impressed by Securicor's
professionalism in its implementation of tagging. For the probation
service, Mr Steve Collett, an Assistant Chief Probation Officer,
explained that attitudes towards electronic monitoring had changed.
He accepted that the service had been sceptical about the use
of electronic monitoring when it was first introduced, partly
due to the involvement of the private sector, but that confidence
in its usefulness had increased, especially as it was now often
used with other orders. Offenders found it a tough option and
it often provided a useful excuse for them not to mix with peers
who could encourage them to commit further crime. Mrs Patricia
Walmsley also told us that the need to be in a certain place at
a certain time often helped offenders with chaotic lifestyles
to restructure their lives. This opinion was confirmed by Mr David
Scanlon, Deputy Justices' Clerk, who told us that the perceived
toughness of the sentence was evidenced by the reluctance of solicitors
to propose it as a sentencing option for their clients.
162. We welcome the introduction of curfew orders
with electronic monitoring. After a slow start, it is pleasing
to see that over 1,000 orders have now been made, suggesting that
sentencers are gaining confidence in the new order. We note the
comments from an Assistant Chief Probation Officer in Manchester
that, after initial opposition, the probation service there were
also gaining confidence in the order. We also note that the
police in Manchester were impressed with the professional manner
in which curfew orders had been implemented there; so were we.
The speedy way in which offenders are chased up if they are not
within their curfew area, and the tactful but firm manner of the
operators we saw in action, give the right impression to offenders:
that this is a punishment they must take seriously. The
curfew order trials appear to have been successful and we therefore
urge the Government to make them available to courts nationally
as soon as possible.
163. Home Detention Curfew The Home Secretary
announced in November 1997[192]
that electronic monitoring would also be used to enforce new Home
Detention Curfews. These allow for the early release of prisoners
serving sentences of between 3 months and 4 years. Such prisoners
are routinely released half-way through their sentence currently;
the new system will mean they will be released a further 2 weeks—2
months early, depending on the length of their sentence. There
will be no automatic entitlement to early release: all prisoners
to whom this is applicable will be subject to a risk assessment
by the Prison Service; those failing will continue their sentence
in the normal way. Prisoners released early subject to home detention
curfews will be tagged and compelled to abide by the curfew for
at least nine hours a day for the length of time that their custodial
sentence would otherwise continue. Breaking the curfew will result
in re-imprisonment. This initiative is expected to free-up 3000
prison places annually.[193]
164. We note the Government's introduction of Home
Detention Curfews allowing for the early release—with tagging—of
prisoners serving sentences between 2 months and 4 years. We
welcome the Home Detention Curfew initiative which, it is estimated,
will-free up 3,000 prison places annually in the context of an
otherwise rapidly increasing prison population. It will provide
adequate protection to the public because of the tagging element,
and will give prisoners an opportunity to readjust to life outside
prison.
Suspended
sentences
165. A suspended sentence is a custodial sentence
which does not result in the offender's imprisonment. If imprisonment
for less than two years would be an appropriate sentence, but
there are exceptional circumstances to the case, the sentence
may be suspended for between one and two years. If another offence
punishable by imprisonment is committed within that time, the
suspended sentence may be put into effect.
166. The use of suspended sentences dropped drastically
as a result of an amendment to section 22 of the Powers of Criminal
Courts Act 1973, contained in the Criminal Justice Act 1991, which
introduced the provision that such sentences could only be imposed
in exceptional circumstances from then on. The table below shows
the reduced use of suspended sentences:
Use of Suspended Sentences (All Courts)[194]
