27 August 2007
The Department of Corrections has partnered with a new provider to New Zealand of electronic monitoring services, to implement Community Detention from mid October.
A contract has been signed with United Kingdom-based company Group 4 Securicor (G4S) to provide electronic monitoring equipment and support for the new sentence, says Katrina Casey, the general manager of Community Probation and Psychological Services (CPPS).
Community Detention is effectively an electronic curfew. It is one of three new sentences that are being implemented as part of a strengthened and tiered structure, to give judges a greater choice when sentencing, and more alternatives to prison.
G4S is the world’s largest provider of electronic monitoring services - currently monitoring around 36,000 offenders in the United Kingdom, the United States and Israel. G4S has partnered with New-Zealand company ICON Group that incorporates security and courier companies, to provide the technology and deliver the equipment.
The G4S web-based monitoring system allows seamless integration of radio frequency, voice verification and global positioning technologies. It also enables probation staff to access the system for information on an offender’s movements from anywhere with an internet connection.
Ms Casey says the new contract does not affect arrangements with Chubb New Zealand, which currently provides monitoring services for Home Detention and other sentences and orders that occasionally involve electronic monitoring, such as Parole.
Community Detention is expected to have a throughput of 2500 offenders a year, and is likely to be considered suitable for speeding and property offenders. Offenders serving the sentence will be monitored in the same way as those serving Home Detention, but for a specific period of time each week.
An ankle bracelet communicates by radio frequency with a monitoring unit in the offender’s home during the curfew period. Information about the offender’s whereabouts is then transmitted and stored at a central monitoring site. This is then processed at a later date to check for abnormalities, and such information is relayed to probation staff to consider possible breach action.
The other new sentences that are being managed by CPPS from October are Home Detention as a stand-alone sentence (rather than a way of serving part or all of a prison term) and Intensive Supervision - which is rehabilitative in nature. These sentences are in addition to Supervision and Community Work sentences that are already managed by CPPS, along with Parole and Home Detention in its existing form.
The strengthening of community-based sentences is part of the Government’s Effective Interventions package, to reduce crime, reoffending and prison numbers.
ENDS
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