The security guard was uninjured.
Shortcliffe, who has gang connections and links to Northland, is not on a list of the 160 highest risk prisoners subject to electronic monitoring. Last night he was still missing.
Earlier this month, changes were made to tamper alerts for those on the list - a mix of bailed prisoners and sentenced offenders - in a bid to improve public safety.
A special team at Corrections is notified as soon as an alert is received for anyone on the highest risk list, and action is taken immediately.
In the past, the security company that received the alert would send a "field officer" to check the property before police or Corrections were notified.
The recent absconding cases prompted Corrections Minister Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga to earlier this month ask officials to look at making the monitoring bracelets tougher.
"I am concerned by the number of offenders and those on bail who have cut off their anklets recently," he said today.
"I have already asked Corrections officials to investigate whether there are more robust anklets available. I am awaiting that information.
"I would note though that no anklet is indestructible."
In June this year private security company 3M took over the contract to supply all electronic monitoring for Corrections. Until then Corrections monitored about 100 high risk offenders who were subject to GPS monitoring and various companies provided electronic monitoring services for home detention, electronic bail, community detention and lower risk GPS tracking.
With the new 3M contract, all activities were brought together under one supplier. The transition was completed in early July.
The company put in a bid to provide a similar state-wide monitoring service in California in 2011.
The LA Times reported that for a week in late 2011 parole agents abused 3M's monitoring devices and those from a second company.
They dropped the devices onto onto concrete, wrapped them in tinfoil to block their signals and submerged them for as long as three hours in a swimming pool.
Testers allowed batteries to run dead, cut ankle straps and traveled into areas beyond the reach of satellite and cellular phone signals, the newspaper reported.
They did not reveal the full results of the testing, but declared 3M's devices so faulty that the state rejected the company's bid.
One agent who participated in the tests said in a court statement that 3M's ankle monitors were 'inundated with defects'.
When speaking to the Herald about the changes to the tamper alerts earlier this month, Corrections national commissioner Jeremy Lightfoot said he had confidence in the electronic monitoring system for the management and supervision of offenders in the community.
"We are confident in the performance of our EM system provided by 3M and their partner First Security," he said.
"The new system has lifted capability from previous systems and provides monitoring of around 3700 offenders in the community. Any tampering of an anklet by an offender is a serious breach of conditions which will be addressed and may lead to a period of imprisonment."
The Labour Party's Corrections spokesman Kelvin Davis said the minister needed to quickly make a decision to use tougher bracelets and implement that immediately.
"It's just ridiculous that you can get a pair of scissors from The Warehouse to cut these things off."
Mr Lightfoot said today any tampering of an anklet was serious and offenders would be held to account.
"Corrections takes public safety seriously and manages many risks each day given the nature of the people we work with. We aim to continuously improve our processes to reduce potential risks and improve public safety," he said.
Shortcliffe's absconding comes just a day after Zane McVeigh allegedly breached his parole conditions by removing his monitoring bracelet and fleeting his Wellington property.
The 19-year-old, who served prison time for the attempted abduction of a student with the intent to rape her, is accused of removing his bracelet on Friday night and going on the run until he was found yesterday.
The weekend's breaches are the latest in a string of incidents this month, including convicted child sex offender David Livingstone, who allegedly removed his electronic monitoring bracelet to escape his Upper Hutt flat.
In June this year private security company 3M took over the contract to supply all electronic monitoring for Corrections.
Until then Corrections monitored about 100 high risk offenders who were subject to GPS monitoring and various companies provided electronic monitoring services for home detention, electronic bail, community detention and lower risk GPS tracking.
With the new 3M contract, all activities were brought together under one supplier.
The transition was completed in early July.
The company put in a bid to provide a similar state-wide monitoring service in California in 2011.
The Los Angeles Times reported that for a week in late 2011 parole agents abused 3M's monitoring devices and those from a second company.
They dropped the devices onto concrete, wrapped them in tinfoil to block their signals and submerged them for as long as three hours in a swimming pool.
Testers allowed batteries to run dead, cut ankle straps and travelled into areas beyond the reach of satellite and cellular phone signals, the newspaper reported.
They did not reveal the full results of the testing, but declared 3M's devices so faulty that the state rejected the company's bid.
One agent who participated in the tests said in a court statement that 3M's ankle monitors were"inundated with defects".
When speaking to the New Zealand Herald about the changes to the tamper alerts earlier this month, Corrections national commissioner Jeremy Lightfoot said he had confidence in the electronic monitoring system for the management and supervision of offenders in the community.
"We are confident in the performance of our EM system provided by 3M and their partner First Security," he said.
"The new system has lifted capability from previous systems and provides monitoring of around 3700 offenders in the community. Any tampering of an anklet by an offender is a serious breach of conditions which will be addressed and may lead to a period of imprisonment."
The charges Thomas Shortcliffe was on electronic bail for:
* Contravening a protection order
* Assault with intent to injure
* Burglary
* Kidnapping
Electronic monitoring:
* Corrections electronically monitors 4100 people through security companies 3M and First Security.
* Of those, 3700 are sentenced prisoners subject to community sentences like home detention or post-sentence supervision orders that dictate GPS monitoring. Those people are managed by Corrections.
* The rest are before the courts and have been released on electronically-monitored bail. Police manage these cases but Corrections carries out the monitoring.
Police ask that anyone who sees him or knows his whereabouts call 111.
