The Government is right to press ahead with plans to extend the use of electronic monitoring of offenders. Locators are important as a deterrent to crime and for keeping track of high-risk criminals in the community. But they are far from infallible, as illustrated by the examples of child sex abusers Tony Robertson and Daniel Livingstone, who breached GPS-tracking conditions. The Government must heed the lessons of those cases and others - it has announced a review of the way all high-risk offenders are managed after release from jail - as it expands the use of such surveillance.
Electronic monitoring was introduced in 2006 for people on home or community detention. It was extended to some high-risk criminals six years later, when then Corrections Minister Anne Tolley declared tracking these offenders around the clock would bring "peace of mind". Parliament is now considering extending the use of the monitoring to people temporarily released from jail and those with "intensive supervision" conditions in the community. A spokesman for current minister Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga says the cases of Robertson and Livingstone mean he is open to advice.
Several avenues warrant exploration. The first springs from an acknowledgment that while electronic monitoring establishes where a person is, it does not establish that a crime is being committed. If an offender breaks curfew or goes into an exclusion zone, such as a park or playground, there needs to be an immediate response. If not, victims will take absolutely no comfort from authorities knowing who committed a crime.
In some cases, unfortunately, an instant response may not be possible. Police may, for example, be involved in other emergencies. Such resourcing problems stand to be heightened by an increase in the number of people being monitored. It is clearly important, however, to ensure there is no delay when a high-risk criminal breaches release conditions. Consequently, there is merit in Labour MP Kelvin Davis's suggestion the worst offenders have an "instant action" classification, so when their alarms are triggered, there is a rapid response.
Nor can there be a repeat of the delay that ensued after Livingstone removed his electronic bracelet. His house was not entered until seven hours after a tamper alert was triggered. The police have defended this by saying they did not have a warrant to enter his home. That makes a mockery of the over-riding need to protect the public from such offenders. Livingstone surely surrendered any right to such consideration when he breached his tracking conditions.
