Latest news with #electronicmonitoring
CBC
17-07-2025
- Politics
- CBC
Manitoba boosts number of ankle monitors to track people on bail
Social Sharing The Manitoba government is spending $1.2 million to double the number of ankle monitors in its electronic monitoring program to 200, allowing it to track more people on bail and offenders serving community-based sentences. The electronic devices, which have GPS monitors that allow law enforcement to be notified of an offender's location, are a tool law enforcement can use to ensure people are complying with court-imposed conditions, "and to stop violent repeat offenders from causing harm," Justice Minister Matt Wiebe said Thursday at a news conference in Brandon, where the NDP government is holding a cabinet meeting. As of July 10, all 100 ankle devices currently in the provincial system were in use. The new funding will add another 100. In total, the cost for the program this year is $2.7 million, a news release from the province said. Brandon police Chief Tyler Bates commended the move, calling it "a direct response to what our communities have been asking for." The program is "a public safety measure that helps us do our job more effectively. It keeps our citizens safe, our officers informed and our communities protected," he said. "And for victims, especially those impacted by intimate partner violence, the reassurance this program brings is invaluable." The electronic monitoring program was first introduced in Manitoba in 2008 to monitor car thieves. It was later expanded to include people convicted of domestic assault. It was scrapped in 2017 by the Progressive Conservative government after a review determined that in many instances, the bracelets were either inaccurate or ineffective. The Tories changed course in 2023, promising to revive the program, citing advances in technology. After the PCs lost that year's election, the current NDP government reinstated the program in 2024, beginning in Winnipeg and then expanding it to Brandon, Souris, Portage la Prairie, Steinbach, Dauphin, Selkirk and Winkler. The additional monitors will enable the province to expand the program to communities in northern Manitoba, Wiebe said Thursday. The devices can help officers pinpoint an individual's location to within two metres, while voice, audio and vibration commands allow police to communicate with the person wearing the monitor. Loud alerts will ring out if the individual being monitored enters an area they're not supposed to, such as retail stores. "The program allows police to take immediate action when someone isn't following their release terms," Wiebe said. Curfew monitoring For people who are under release conditions, but require less restrictive supervision than an ankle bracelet, the province is launching new curfew-monitoring software that uses secure video conferencing and biometrics already in use on most smartphones. "This is now going to be monitored in the same way that we would monitor these [ankle bracelet] devices, but just done now through the technology that's in everybody's pocket," Wiebe said. "It allows us to deploy this program more widely and meet that need that's out in the community. It will continue to hold offenders accountable, but it will decrease the burden on law enforcement." Officers who were spending time performing in-person checks at the homes of those under a curfew can now focus on responding to emergency and other serious calls, he said. Commissionaires Manitoba has been contracted to oversee that program, Wiebe said. Brandon Mayor Jeff Fawcett called the measures "a big deal" for making safer places for everyone. "A lot of the crime here is caused by repeat offenders, and it's important that we tackle this issue head-on," he said. "We need to see public safety as a part of growing our economy. For the small businesses here in Brandon, reducing crime is crucial for a more stable and thriving environment." Repeating past calls from Manitoba municipalities, he also urged the federal government to take strong measures on bail reform and to address the root causes of crime. Wiebe acknowledged no monitoring device is foolproof, and some people will do anything they can to circumvent tracking. Police will take necessary action against those who tamper with their monitoring, he said, and alerts from the devices allow quick reaction time. "But this is about giving people the opportunity, as well, to make the right choice. If you've gotten to the point in your life where you're wearing one of these things, maybe that's what you need to make it clear to you that … 'I gotta make some changes in my life,'" said Wiebe.
RNZ News
16-07-2025
- Politics
- RNZ News
Criminologist fears electronic tagging of migrants 'going to get huge'
Victoria University criminologist Liam Martin. Photo: Supplied Introducing electronic tags for asylum seekers will open up a Pandora's box of issues, a criminologist says. The government has introduced legislation that would allow the electronic monitoring of migrants and asylum seekers who pose a security risk, or might run away. Liam Martin, who researches electronic monitoring at Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University, said by some estimates New Zealand's criminal justice system already had the highest per capita rate in the world, or ran a close second to the US. "We've got about six-and-a-half thousand people on electronic monitoring in New Zealand, which is approaching the number that we have in prison. "In the UK and the US, immigration electronic monitoring is just exploding. It's getting massive in the UK, for example. As far as I can tell it, it operates on a scale that rivals criminal justice now. So what I foresee is thousands of people ending up on electronic monitoring in immigration eventually." Electronic tags - either ankle clamps or digital devices - had been promoted as a technology fix for rising prison populations, but ended up being an add-on, he said. The bill's wording seemed relatively contained, he added, but he predicted it was "going to get huge". "I just think there's a flood of social and political and economic forces that are pushing towards an explosion within immigration. We're intertwined with these things, so when I see things happening in the UK and happening in the US, I'm always thinking, 'so how long till we end up latching onto that?'. "It's a massive expansion of surveillance, another sphere of our lives that is becoming opened up to for-profit surveillance. It's in these niches where new surveillance systems intersect with old patterns of racial inequality that I think that you see the the more severe forms take hold." Martin, who has a multi-year grant from the Royal Society to research electronic monitoring, said the company that supplied electronic monitoring equipment for New Zealand criminal justice, Buddi, was already a major supplier of migrant tracking tech in the UK. The Immigration Amendment Bill is at select committee stage. Photo: RNZ Immigration lawyer Lucy Tothill said when it was first mentioned, electronic monitoring sounded positive as a step away from detention. "But the way that it's being drafted and discussed is quite loose, kind of leaves it open to a wider scope for monitoring asylum seekers. So my opinion on it is that it's hard to take a really strong position without knowing exactly what it will look like, but there are concerns about the privacy, security and human rights involved with monitoring asylum seekers. In particular, seeing the increased criminalisation of migrants and asylum seekers. "It's one thing to require people to report somewhere if you're worried about them absconding, it's quite another thing to know where they are at every minute of the day - that opens up other concerns about data collection and data use and what we do with all of the information about where people are and what they are doing with their day." Her concerns were on the potential numbers of people it could affect, and what grounds would prompt authorities to deem it necessary. Some devices used overseas have facial recognition and fingerprint scanning technology that require migrants to check in several times a day. A spokesperson for immigration minister Erica Stanford said it was an operational matter for Immigration New Zealand (INZ). She previously told RNZ that rough estimates were five asylum seekers and 130 migrants a year would be subject to electronic monitoring as an alternative to detention. "There will always be a number [of people] that we have a slight more concern about about being a flight risk or other things, and so then there is this intermediary option." INZ's border and funding immigration policy manager Stacey O'Dowd, said safeguards included judicial oversight and regular review. "It responds to a recommendation by Victoria Casey KC in her review in the detention of asylum seekers. Such conditions could only be imposed by a judge, who must be satisfied that the conditions are reasonable, proportionate, and the least restrictive option available. "Electronic monitoring conditions would last for three months and require an additional application to the judge for any extension of the initial term. A higher legal threshold is proposed for individuals claiming refugee or protected person status. This recognises the vulnerability of individuals seeking international protection." Implementation details would be worked through once the bill was passed, but would be tightly scoped and carefully controlled, she said. "The bill does not propose the use of facial recognition, fingerprint detection, or real-time tracking in relation to electronic monitoring. Monitoring would not involve constant surveillance; instead, alerts would only be triggered if someone crosses a boundary they are not permitted to leave." Corrections said it did not have information on other countries' rates of electronic monitoring. Its director of community operations David Grigg said there were 6276 monitored wearers, 1845 of whom were on bail, a slight increase from March last year when there were 6037 people wearing trackers, including 1786 on bail. The Immigration Amendment Bill is at select committee stage and public submissions close on 28 July. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Yahoo
11-07-2025
- Yahoo
Juvenile Services announces improvements to electronic monitoring policies
The Maryland Department of Juvenile Services announced changes to their electronic monitoring policies. The changes will reflect a more proactive agency role. READ MORE:
Yahoo
11-07-2025
- Yahoo
Juvenile Services announces improvements to electronic monitoring policies
The Maryland Department of Juvenile Services announced changes to their electronic monitoring policies. The changes will reflect a more proactive agency role. READ MORE:
Times
08-07-2025
- Politics
- Times
Southport inquiry to consider curfews for ‘potential criminals'
The Southport inquiry will examine whether courts should be allowed to impose sweeping restrictions on people suspected of planning serious violent offences, even if they have not committed any crime. Opening proceedings on Tuesday at Liverpool town hall, Sir Adrian Fulford, the chair, said he inquiry will consider whether the state should have powers to impose curfews, electronic tags, internet bans and limits on social media use for individuals deemed to pose a risk of serious harm. The inquiry was established after the deadly knife attack carried out in July last year by Axel Rudakubana, a teenager known to social services, police, Prevent and NHS mental health services. Rudakubana, then 17, fatally stabbed three young girls, — Bebe King, 6, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, 9 — during a Taylor Swift-themed dance class, gravely injuring ten more people including eight children. Police ruled out terrorism after finding no clear ideological motive, but described how Rudakubana appeared to have been influenced by a range of violent and extremist content. The government's Crime and Policing Bill, which is progressing through parliament, would create 'youth diversion orders' for under-22s feared to be at risk of being drawn into terrorism, intended to steer them away from prosecution and towards deradicalisation programmes. The inquiry will consider whether similar measures should also apply more widely, including to non-terrorist cases, or whether such a move would undermine 'core civil liberties'. It will also examine whether Prevent, the government's counterextremism programme, needs to be overhauled to 'address young people who are drawn into extreme violence without an accompanying commitment to a particular religious or political cause'. • Prevent scheme 'fails to tackle terrorism funded by organised crime' Referring to the Southport attack, Fulford said: 'The present offences were not terrorist-related. A question therefore to be answered during the inquiry is whether the state should have the capacity to impose restrictions on an individual, those above and below 22, when there is strong evidence that they intend to commit serious violent crime but they have not yet taken steps such as to justify their arrest or prosecution, whether terrorist-related or otherwise. 'If a sufficiently strong risk is established of an intention commit an offence of serious violence, should the courts be in a position, for instance, to impose a curfew; require a tag; otherwise limit their freedom of movement and their ability to carry out research on the internet and to use social media; and to require psychological intervention until the risk has sufficiently been alleviated? 'Or would such a development run counter to the basic underpinnings of our democracy and our core civil liberties?' Fulford stressed he would not make judgments on matters before they are heard but the undisputed facts 'tend to suggest that far from being an unforeseeable catastrophic event, the perpetrator posed a very serious and significant risk of violent harm'. Rudakubana's engagement with police, mental health services, his education and 'his relationship with his family' would also be examined, he said. Fulford added: 'His ability, unhindered, to access gravely violent material on the internet, to order knives online at a young age, and then to leave home unsupervised to commit the present attack, speaks to a wholesale and general failure to intervene effectively, or indeed at all, to address the risks that he posed.' The inquiry will examine whether risk assessments and information-sharing between agencies need to be strengthened, including whether a single official should be appointed to co-ordinate responses to individuals considered at high risk of serious violence. Fulford said the inquiry would also scrutinise 'the ease with which the perpetrator armed himself'. Despite being under 18, Rudakubana was able to buy weapons online, including the 20cm chef's knife from Amazon that he used in the attack. While the Crime and Policing Bill proposes tougher restrictions on online sales of knives and crossbows, Fulford said he would hear evidence on whether these measures go far enough. He described the Southport attack as 'one of the most egregious crimes in our country's history' and pledged that the inquiry would 'identify without fear or favour all of the relevant failings' to give the 'the best chance of intervening' in similar cases in future. He added: 'As a society we are not helpless when confronted with individuals who are known to be contemplating acts of such depravity and although no solution will be foolproof, we can identify all of the robust steps which should be taken to protect ourselves, and particularly the most vulnerable, from horrors of this kind.' • Southport survivors' parents: We don't feel lucky The inquiry will take place in two phases. Phase one, beginning in September, will examine the events leading up to the attack, including missed opportunities to prevent Rudakubana. Phase two, set for 2026, will 'consider the wider phenomenon of children and young people who are being drawn into extreme violence, determining what can and should be done to reverse this troubling trend,' Fulford said. The prime minister has previously called for a 'nothing off the table' approach, stating that the attack must be 'a line in the sand'. Witnesses and agencies are expected to be fully candid, and Fulford warned he would 'not hesitate' to use statutory powers if necessary to compel co-operation. The chairman, who retired from the Court of Appeal in 2022, was one of the longest-serving members of the senior judiciary of England and Wales. He previously sat as a judge of the International Criminal Court and in 2021 he sentenced the former Met Police officer Wayne Couzens to a whole-life order for the murder of Sarah Everard. • Mother of Southport attack victim: 'We had everything' His 'immediate priority' having been appointed to the inquiry was to 'organise a series of visits and meetings in Southport in order to meet the victims and their families', he said. He explained that Rudakubana would only be referred to as 'the perpetrator' or 'AR' throughout the proceedings, to protect the families from further trauma. The lawyers for the bereaved families of the three girls said they were 'committed to getting answers for them'. Rachael Wong and Chris Walker of the law firm Bond Turner said: 'We know that nothing the inquiry reveals or subsequently recommends will change the unimaginable loss felt by the families of Elsie, Alice and Bebe, but we all now have a responsibility to ensure that something like this never happens again. 'We will be doing all we can to assist the chair through the inquiry and uncover the truth. It is only through intense public scrutiny that real change can be effected.'
