Plan for electronic monitoring of violent offenders expected in three months

Electronic monitoring of violent perpetrators could be a reality in the ACT in the next 12 months.

Technological options to supervise serious offenders and defendants in the community has long been on ACT Policing’s wishlist. The government agreed at a recent National Cabinet meeting for greater consistency across all jurisdictions to target serial offenders of domestic and family violence.

The 2023-24 Budget contained $377,000 over two years to study and develop a plan on how to best implement electronic monitoring in the ACT.

This work is expected to be completed by August.

“Part of the work being done at the moment is looking at whether one system can do all those things. And what monitoring processes you need, particularly the relationship with police and what impact the monitoring of live tracking options for police response,” Attorney-General Shane Rattenbury said.

“We need to make sure that when we create a system, it does what it says it will do.

“The ACT Government sees electronic monitoring as a really important part of a suite of justice responses. It can provide important protections and also monitoring of people to ensure they’re meeting the conditions that have been set down for them.”

Electronic monitoring can take many forms: live tracking that’s monitored constantly by police officers, an alarm system that alerts a victim if a perpetrator is within their vicinity, or making an electronic location record to see if a person is complying with conditions imposed at bail or parole hearings.

What constitutes a “violent offender” is another definition up for debate.

Mr Rattenbury said domestic and family violence was a key area of focus.

“We do see it as an important way to provide improved preventative protection in family and domestic violence cases,” he said.

Other considerations also include legislative change.

Laws will likely need to be changed or introduced to give the courts the power to impose an electronic monitoring condition, plus establish rules around monitoring and appeals.

“[We’ll] need to set up the various rules and systems so that it’s clear where it can be applied, what is considered to be a breach and what the consequences of that breach are,” Mr Rattenbury said.

“We’re determined to get on with this, it’s not going to take years, we want to get this delivered as soon as possible.”

Intensive Correction Orders are the only current legislative option in the ACT that allows for electronic monitoring. But only in the context of an offender’s compliance with a condition of the order, such as staying away from a certain area or adhering to a curfew.

Education will be an important aspect of the new system.

Prevention of Domestic and Family Violence Minister Yvette Berry said this could include education for the community, support services and police about how such technology could be implemented here.

“I think we are big enough to be able to apply that kind of prevention strategy, but we’re also agile enough because of our size to do it quickly,” she said.

“Really we want to be looking at prevention and stopping domestic violence from happening in the first place, and that means a significant culture shift in our community.

“Governments can fund various supports and justice response, but the community needs to come along the ride as well and change the culture around violence, around respectful relationships, so we can stop this violence and death in the first place.”

Ms Berry said the government was also listening to concerns that certain minority groups could be unfairly or disproportionately targeted by this system.