Offenders being freed from jail in England, who are at risk of committing crimes after drinking, may be required to wear “sobriety tags” or handed alcohol bans. Justice Secretary Dominic Raab said the scheme, which is being launched after it was rolled out in Wales last year, will target at least 1,900 prison leavers over the next two years.
Under the programme, electronically monitored tags will be used to check alcohol levels in sweat for former prisoners who are deemed capable of reoffending after drinking. Others could be handed an alcohol ban to prevent them from drinking if probation officers believe they may have a problem, according to the Ministry of Justice (MoJ).
Criminals caught breaching their alcohol restrictions could face being sent back to jail, the department said. An extra £183 million will be funnelled into electronic monitoring by 2025 to almost double the number of offenders tagged at any one time to approximately 25,000, the MoJ said.
It comes after Whitehall’s spending watchdog warned the Government had failed to improve its tagging system as intended and lost £98 million trying to do so. In a report earlier this month, the National Audit Office said attempts to overhaul the scheme had fallen flat because the Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) had failed to deliver a new case management system.
The MoJ said stopping work on a “back-office system” had meant the Government could invest “savings” into its aim to double tagging numbers by 2025. But shadow justice minister Ellie Reeves described the findings as “yet more evidence… this soft-on-crime Conservative government is letting criminals off and letting victims down through its incompetence”.
The report noted that HMPPS had extended tagging to new groups of offenders, including through the alcohol monitoring service, but warned significant work was still needed to strengthen the system at large. According to the MoJ, the rollout of the scheme in Wales saw offenders on tag sticking to their alcohol restrictions 97% of time.
Sobriety tags were already available to judges to hand down to offenders serving community sentences. From Wednesday, the tags will be used on prison leavers coming out of jail on probation who are identified as requiring them.
On the launch, Mr Raab said: “We’ve seen that alcohol tags work – with tagged offenders complying 97% of the time. “That’s why we’re going to double the number wearing them from 900 to 1,900 over the next two years, focusing on those leaving prison on licence.
“This is a big step forward using the latest technology to cut the link between alcohol abuse and the crime – and make our streets safer.”
Probation minister Kit Malthouse said: “When I first brought alcohol tags to the UK over a decade ago, I knew that given the chance, they could have a huge impact on crime. The great results we have seen so far, and now the expansion announced this week, mean that the use of tagging technology is firmly embedded as a critical tool for offender managers, proving a huge incentive for offenders to change.”
