CURFEW ORDERS (Hansard, 15 January 1997)

§ Mr. Beith

The amendment relates to the electronic tagging of juveniles. Its purpose is to restrict the use of electronic tagging to young offenders who are 15 or over.

The Government have issued much publicity on the merits of electronic tagging, aided by companies that were involved in the pilot project. I was struck that the press releases that came into my hands after an announcement over Christmas were not from the Home Office, but from Securicor. I began to wonder who was in charge at the Home Office—Securicor seemed to be setting the agenda.

The research has had some useful results. It has demonstrated that considerable progress has been made in dealing with the technology, which failed lamentably at earlier stages. It looks as if it can be made to work, but, from that research, it is difficult to draw useful conclusions either about the cost of tagging or its suitability for very young offenders.

It seems that tagging would have to be used much more than seems likely before it was cost-effective for the companies concerned. I have been told that there was heavy staff involvement from the companies concerned in the project and that one company had 25 staff involved for 50 offenders. That ratio is not going to be maintained. Unless courts make far more use of the electronic tagging system than seems likely, the cost will be high. Even in America, where it is more well established, the proportion of offenders involved in electronic tagging is small, but in the limited time that we have available tonight, I want to concentrate on its applicability to very young offenders—those under the age of 15.

What young, increasingly hardened offenders need is not technology to ensure that they are kept under house arrest, but supervision. They need responsible adult role models—people who give them guidance and set an example. It is no use simply satisfying ourselves that we have confined a youngster embarking on a criminal career to a particular place unless we do some good in that place. If the youngster is under adequate supervision there, electronic tagging is of little importance or significance.

The case for using electronic tagging of an adult offender may be easier to make if we are trying to ensure that that offender does not go into areas where he or she can readily commit crimes, but if we are talking about a 13 or 14-year-old persistent offender, that youngster should be under extensive supervision by a parent, teacher, social worker or probation officer—skilled professionals. If there is no family back-up, skilled professionals will have to do all the work. If there is some family back-up, skilled professionals should be helping the family. The last thing that is significant in this case is our ability to maintain an electronic tag to show that the young person is in that place. The important thing is who is there to ensure that that young person has the role model, guidance, help and all the rest of it.

416 Resources will be grossly misapplied if they go into the electronic tagging scheme, instead of appropriate supervision and management of difficult, seriously misguided and sometimes dangerous youngsters. Therefore, our amendment suggests that, if the Government want to proceed in developing the electronic tagging scheme for adults, let them do so, but, for the youngest offenders, the Government's efforts should be directed at their supervision, control, training and development, not at a scheme that can achieve none of those things and that would grossly misuse resources.

I invite Ministers to think again. Courts will not be likely to make much use of electronic tagging for this purpose, but if they are able to do so at all, there is likely to be a significant misapplication of resources, which should be used in the way that I have described.

§ Mr. Maclean

What I think the right hon. Gentleman misunderstands—although we had a good discussion about it in Committee—is that, in the Government's view, a curfew order for the 10-to-14 age group will be an additional valuable tool to deal with juvenile offenders. There is nothing to suggest that supervision orders and another range of activities cannot take place at the same time.

The right hon. Gentleman seems to assume that, if we have electronic tagging for youngsters, we will do nothing else—that we will simply invest all our hopes in the panacea of electronics. That is not the case. Indeed, research published recently shows that the tagging equipment works effectively: 75 per cent. of offenders were tagged successfully, and completed their curfew orders. It also shows that there is tremendous merit in using the new electronic technology that is available—and, of course, backing that up with supervision by parents, teachers, social workers, probation officers or anyone else. There is nothing to stop supervision orders being made in addition to tagging, or as part of it.

9.30 pm

We have made a number of modifications to the curfew order to reflect the younger age of the people to whom we are extending it. We have said that the maximum term should be three months rather than six, and that before making an order the court must obtain and consider information about the family circumstances and the effect that the order will have on the family. That is to ensure that the legislation is targeted appropriately on the youngsters on whom we think it will have the best effect.

We intend to introduce the order on a pilot basis. There may be new and unanticipated difficulties with the younger age group, and a pilot study should help to identify the problems and ensure that we can use the system as effectively with that group as we have found from our studies that we can use it with the older age group.

In view of those assurances—and, if he reads the report of the Committee stage, he will see that we made the point at greater length then—I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will conclude that the amendment is unnecessary and his fears unjustified.

Amendment negatived.