§ Mr. Keith SimpsonTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment he has made of the extra work which increased use of community sentencing and electronic tagging will place on the police force. [20177]
§ Ms QuinThere has been no specific research to assess the impact of the increased use of community sentences. However, there is likely to be an increase in the number of warrants served by the police on offenders who have failed to comply with the conditions of an order and who have not answered a summons to appear at court in connection with breach proceedings.
Offenders who have breached the terms of their electronic tag are returned to the court by the monitoring contractors. However, if an offender then fails to appear in court, a warrant for arrest is issued. Too few such cases have arisen during the current trials of electronic monitoring to enable a meaningful estimate of police costs to be made.
Under the new Home Detention Curfew, suitable prisoners will be subjected to electronic tagging. Prisoners who breach their curfew can be returned to custody. It is too soon to know what the possible impact on the police of this will be.