Why doesnt Ireland electronically tag violent criminals If they intend to grant them bail?

Did you smash it

The US and The UK do.

It might afford us more protection from threat.

too expensive?

Peregrinus

Any research on the UK and US experience on outcomes - i.e. has it actually led to a reduction in violent offending by people on bail?

Tagging gives information on where you are, and is only relevant if bail is granted subject to conditions on where you can be - e.g. that you may not leave your home, that you must not come with 100m of your ex's home, whatever. Only a small proportion of bail cases are subject to conditions like this in Ireland, so I don't know how relevant tagging would be in practice.

Witcher

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/prison-service-abandons-electronic-tagging-for-offenders-1.4757358

Did you smash it

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118471807#Comment_118471807

the Article doesnt answer what i would say are two key questions

1- it says it was a measure introduced to manage prison overcrowding. After The abolishing of The use of electronic tags then what other measures were introduced in its place to tackle overcrowding?

2- it says the use of tags was discontinued because of The value for money issues. Well i would like to see The report on that cost benefit analysis to drum into The detail.

also its important to mention this was only used in Ireland to monitor The already imprisoned who were on day release etc. Its a far narrower use of The tags than exists in The US and UK.

Peregrinus

Well, note that the object stated in the OP is to afford us "protection from threat", whereas the aim of the prison service experiment seems to have been so save money.

Let's think this through. Obviously, in themselves, electronic tags do not provide any protection. If I am murdered by a man wearing an electronic tag, I am just as dead as if I had been murdered by a man without one. The tag itself does nothing to protect me.

The idea that it protects me is based on some unstated assumptions:

• The many is already known or suspected to be a dangerous violent offender.
• He has come to the attention of law enforcement for that reason, and has become subject to the legal process.
• The legal process has applied rules or restrictions to him to restrain his violent offending.
• Those restrictions include restrictions on where he is permitted to go, or where he is permitted to be.
• Those restrictions, if observed, will actually be effective to reduce his violent offending
• Electronic tagging will assist in enforcing observance of the rules and restrictions.

There's a lot of assumptions that can go wrong in there, and if any of the prior assumptions do go wrong, then tagging is not going to fix the problem. It seems to me that tagging really only helps if bail restrictions are appropriate and are well-targeted, and if tagging assists in enforcing them more effectively, or more cheaply.

Tagging might be effective but expensive. For example, prisoners being released to go to hospital; you can tackle the risk of them absconding by sending a prison officer to accompany them, or by tagging them (which doesn't directly prevent them from absconding, but means that if they do they can be recaptured reasonably quickly, which in may make it less likely that they will abscond in the first place and limits the opportunity they have for further offending if they do abscond.) On the face of it, sending a prison officer seems likely to be more effective at preventing absconding and further offending. If it also turns out to be cheaper, that decision is a no-brainer.

fritzelly

Seems the assumption behind the reasoning for using it were ultimately flawed and very expensive to administer

Sex offenders aside if you need to be able to monitor people out on bail then why are they out on bail to start with

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118471883#Comment_118471883

Because they have not been convicted of any offence, and may in fact be wholly innocent?

fritzelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118471907#Comment_118471907

Notice I said if you need to monitor them and bail isn't an automatic right. People can be refused bail without trial even if they are ultimately innocent

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118471911#Comment_118471911

Yes, they can. But the presumption is in favour of bail; you need a good reason for denying them bail. And the good reason can't be punishing them on account of the crimes with which they have been charged, since we do not know if they are guilty of those crimes. The mere fact that someone has been charged with violent offences does not establish that he is a violent person and does not allow us to restrain him on the basis that the is a violent person.

Good reasons for denying somebody bail would be things like:

• Concrete reasons for supposing that he will abscond to avoid trial (rather than the abstract fear that he could do so, which would apply equally to everyone accused of any offence)
• Concrete reasons for thinking that he will interfere with witnesses, or otherwise attempt to interfere with his own trial
• Concrete reasons for thinking that, if bailed, he will commit serious offences.

At least in principle, electronic tagging could have a role to play in preventing people from absconding (since it makes it easy for you to find them), so electronic tagging of somebody who presents a flight risk could be an alternative to refusing them bail. But I don't know how realistic this is in practice; you'd want to be pretty confident that the electronic tag couldn't be removed, and in the real world I don't know if we can be that confident.

Tagging might have some role in policing a "don't interfere with witnesses" condition, if it took the form of, e.g, "stay away from your ex". Note that I say "policing", not "enforcing". A tag won't stop the accused breaching this condition; it will just mean that we will know if he breaches it, and we can punish him for it after the event. And that might discourage the breach in the first place so, yeah, it could have some role there. But keep your expectations realistic; this may reduce the incidence of people breaching "stay away from . . ." bail conditions, but it won't eliminate it.

Same goes for conditions designed to stop anticipated offences; my gut says that tagging will probably be more useful in detecting and punishing breaches of those conditions than in preventing them.

Part of the problem here is that a lot of people who end up in the criminal justice system have poor impulse control, and/or are not good at allowing foresight of the consequences to influence their actions; that's why they end up in the system. You and I might think that the prospect of being detected and punished for theft, or assault, or whatever, would deter us from stealing or assaulting, but that's not the reason we don't steal or assault, is it? We don't go around constantly suppressing a desire to take stuff or hit people by reminding ourselves that, if we do, we'll go to prison; other factors explain why we don't do this, so we are not living proof of the efficacy of the fear of detection/punishment as a deterrent.

My gut says that crimes that are committed in a calculating way - like fraud, systematic theft, that kind of thing - may well be deterred by improved methods of detection and prosecution, and in circumstances where electronic tags can improve detection and prosecution of these crimes, they might be beneficial. But crimes that are committed on impulse, crimes that exhibit a lack of control - and I think we are talking here about a large proportion of crimes of violence - are a different story. Somebody like a professional hitman might be influenced by a cost-benefit analysis of the risk of detection, but very few murders are committed by professional hitmen. Most murders are committed by family members who aren't thinking rationally at all, or they are completely unplanned, the outcome of unexpected confrontations that escalate.

Tl;dr: I'm not saying that electronic tagging has no useful role to play in preventing crime. But you need to think very carefully and dispassionately about the circumstances in which it will be effective, which I suspect are quite limited. The fact that electronic tagging is widely used in the US or the UK does not mean that it is effective; law enforcement policies in most democracies are a blend between what actually works and what plays well in the tabloids, and widespread tagging could easily be employed in those countries because voters like it, and assume that it works, rather than because it actually does work.

fritzelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118471920#Comment_118471920

There's many reasons to refuse bail and many times it is ignored in Ireland e.g. repeat offenders, overwhelming evidence - how many serious crimes have been committed by people out on bail who already had a string of violent offences behind them some still waiting sentencing

I agree an electronic tag does nothing to prevent prolific criminals, pointless exercise that just costs more money than it's worth when there are better ways to achieve safety in society

Del2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118471883#Comment_118471883

Why not tag people on bail? It's a record of where they have been and it'd provide evidence if they are committing "free" offences while on bail. If we aren't going to fix the system, people shouldn't have 3 figure convictions, then the least we can do is record the crimes that they are committing.

fritzelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118471925#Comment_118471925

If they're on 3 figure convictions they shouldn't be out on the street period - is there something to be said for a private prison system in Ireland since the government aren't interested in building prisons

Video: Man shows how to remove a GPS tracking ankle bracelet | Daily Mail Online

I'm sure the Lock Picking Lawyer could probably get it off in a few seconds

GM228

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118471855#Comment_118471855

Value for money, humm, the tags cost €36 per deployment which isn't a huge cost, but the problem is the amount of times they were used, in 2017 just 59 prisoners were tagged, but they were tagged 4616 times, an average of 82 times per prisoner in 12 months.

With regards to tagging of those on Bail, it would be permitted for those accused of serious offences (where requested by the DPP) if S6B of the Bail Act 1997 is ever commenced. In 2019 the DoJ was looking at doing this and set up the Working Group on Electronic Monitoring and was also working with the Office of the Government Procurement to try and identify a suitable expert to advise the them on electronic monitoring pre-market consultation.

The outcome of that initiative has not been made public, but three years later one would assume the matter has concluded and the linked article was the result as the initiative was also reviewing with the prison service.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118471928#Comment_118471928

You do realise that private prisons are paid for by the government, don't you?

GM228

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118471923#Comment_118471923

There are actually very few reasons to refuse Bail, in fact there are just four - where the person is accused of a serious offence and is considered a flight risk, where they may interfere with evidence or witnesses, or if there is risk of them committing a further serious offence, to refuse Bail otherwise is unconstitutional.

Now that I think of it, I suspect the reason why S6B of the 1997 Act has not been commenced is because there could be a possibility of it being unconstitutional, Bail can not be a form of punitive or preventative justice.

touts

Because there are some very powerful groups lobbying for the rights of criminals (e.g. the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, Irish Penal Reform Trust etc) and also the justice industry (solicitors, barristers, judges etc) make less money if their clients aren't out committing crimes. With those groups fighting every effort to limit the freedom of criminals it is surprising we even have prisons any more let alone tagging.

Peregrinus

In the context of bail, which is the issue raised by the OP, wider use of tagging would probably lead to more grants of bail, not fewer. If tagging is seen as effective in tackling absconding, reoffending, etc, then you don't need to remand people in custody to prevent these things; you can bail them with tags. More liberty for people accused of crimes and a much, much lower cost to the state; what's not to like? So that's what would happen.

Del2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118471966#Comment_118471966

According to GM228 bail is almost guaranteed. So how could the tagging of people on bail lead to more people being on bail if it's unconstitutional not to grant it? And tagging is preventative, it just means that there's proof that they where at a location when a crime was committed.

Did you smash it

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118471966#Comment_118471966

im the OP, I don’t believe and I don’t think I mentioned it should be just a consideration for bail.

ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118472185#Comment_118472185

It would reduce the possibility of someone being denied bail because they are a flight risk. if they can be tagged they can less of a flight risk and less reason to deny them bail. that results in more people on bail.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118472281#Comment_118472281

The title to the thread refers specifically to people who are granted bail. My apologies if I misunderstood you.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118472185#Comment_118472185

Bail is not "almost guaranteed"; lots of people are denied bail and remanded in custody. A reason for thinking that someone will abscond is a constitutionally valid reason for denying them bail. But, to the extent that that fear can be addressed by tagging, then it would cease to be a reason for denying bail, so we would expect more bail grants.

On your second point, did you mean to say that tagging is not preventative of offences, it just provides evidence after the event?

Did you smash it

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118472533#Comment_118472533

jeez sorry, my bad.

i think tagging should be an option for all criminals with 50 plus convictions and a history of violence. Like even after release. At that level the perpetrator is either an uncontrollably impulsive or a career criminal.

just my opinion.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118471879#Comment_118471879

While I'd like to see some proper cost/benefit analysis before forming an opinion on the subject, some of your argument is so poor I'm genuinely surprised it came from you.

If a tag doesn't provide any protection because it doesn't literally prevent someone from doing something then we can apply that logic to pretty much any law. I mean there's a law against murder but it doesn't prevent someone from doing a murder.

ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118472927#Comment_118472927

If a tag doesn't provide any protection because it doesn't literally prevent someone from doing something then we can apply that logic to pretty much any law. I mean there's a law against murder but it doesn't prevent someone from doing a murder.

there is a law against murder and it doesn't prevent anyone from committing murder. I'm not sure what your point is.

Did you smash it

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118473221#Comment_118473221

The law doesnt prevent crimes. Is that what your saying?

ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118473427#Comment_118473427

I was asking buttonftw if that is what they were saying. it seems to be stating the obvious to me.

Did you smash it

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118473437#Comment_118473437

Ok Apols, the conversation has got confusing

Ubbquittious

Everyone loves it when new Orwellian measures are brought in. We must be bringing in a constant stream of new Orwellian things or else the future will leave us behind and we'll go back to a land of little stone cottages with fellas cutting turf with a slean in black and white.

Del2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118472546#Comment_118472546

Yes, how can a tag stop someone committing a crime? We have Gardaí, private security, CCTV and secured premises but people still do criminal acts everyday. All a tag does is record location and I'd assume alarm if it leaves a pre determined area. What it'd do is mean that if a crime has been committed then there's no doubt that the person was in the place at the time it was committed.

We still have a massive issue with people committing offences on bail as they are considered "Free" as the sentences are usually always concurrent. This way at least we might solve some more crimes.

GM228

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118472185#Comment_118472185

I never stated Bail is almost guaranteed, I simply pointed out that there are very few (as opposed to many in the post I replied to) valid reasons to refuse Bail, just 4, that does not mean it is almost guaranteed and often one or more of those reasons are met and the Bail is refused.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118472927#Comment_118472927

I didn't say tags didn't provide any protection; I said they didn't provide any protection in themselves. And then I went on to explain - at what the time I thought might be excessive detail , but obviously it wasn't- that they might provide protection in combination with other factors and circumstances, which I set out. To evaluate how useful tags will be in affording protection, we need to look at all the other factors and ask ourselves how often, and in what circumstances, they will line up in a way that will make the use of tags effective (and cost-effective).