Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the effectiveness of electronic tagging to monitor convicted criminals sentenced to punishment in the community.

There are lots of different types of Electronic Monitoring (EM) and effectiveness is dependent on a number of factors. Some of the EM technology is relatively new and so the Department is undertaking a comprehensive EM expansion programme designed to evaluate the effectiveness of EM on specific cohorts of individuals. We are robustly evaluating the effectiveness of each of the four projects (Acquisitive Crime – targeting burglars, robbers and thieves, Licence Variation, Domestic Abuse Perpetrators on Licence, and Alcohol Monitoring on Licence) to better understand the impacts of different forms of EM.

Evaluations will start to be published from the beginning of 2025. We are unable to predict the conclusions of these evaluations, which will be reviewed by an independent peer reviewer.

There is clear evidence that alcohol monitoring devices positively affect behaviour during the period of monitoring. England and Wales have a comprehensive programme of alcohol monitoring in place compared with international comparators. Since their introduction, alcohol monitoring tags have demonstrated a 97% compliance rate.