DoJ Provision of Electronic Monitoring Services in Northern Ireland

Descriptions

The Department of Justice (DOJ) require a contract for the provision of services for the Electronic Monitoring (EM) of offenders in Northern Ireland. The scope of EM is a public protection tool for both for the judiciary and for the criminal justice agencies monitoring offenders in the community. The Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland ) Order 2008 (“the 2008 Order”) provides that electronic monitoring services are made available to facilitate effective monitoring of offenders’ compliance with curfew conditions aimed at enhancing their supervision and limiting their opportunity to reoffend. EM is a key public protection tool for both for the judiciary and for the criminal justice agencies (CJA) who monitor offenders in the community. The four CJA clients using EM services are: • NI Court Service (NICTS); • Police Service NI (PSNI); • NI Prison Service (NIPS); and • Probation Board NI (PBNI). EM currently monitors adherence to curfews requiring the confinement of the subject within the boundaries of an approved address for a period of between 2 and 12 hours per day. It uses an electronic tag fitted to a subject which sends a signal to a receiver unit located at the curfew address – usually the subject’s home. During the hours of the curfew, breaks in the signal (where the tag goes out of range of the receiver) indicate that a curfew violation has occurred and are verified and reported by the service provider to the appropriate supervising CJA. The monitoring information EM provides can be presented at court to confirm curfew condition violations or support the prosecution case in relation to any other offences which may have been committed whilst being monitored. It therefore plays an important role in levels of public confidence, hampers the ability of an offender to reoffend (during the curfew hours when the court believes they are at greatest risk of re-offending) and can provide valuable information to statutory authorities which can be used to support the detection and prosecution of crime.