CjScotland

“To even suggest that wearing an electronic tag is an alternative to serving a prison sentence is simply ludicrous” (John Lamont MSP, quoted in Scottish Daily Mail 17th May 2013)

The upward jerk of John Lamont’s knee when he heard that the Scottish government was considering using electronic monitoring a little more must have been so sudden that it hit his jaw and knocked his brains out. Time was when I expected more of the Conservative spokeperson on crime, but I have got so used to him witlessly dismissing any penalty that is not prison as “soft touch” that this sadly came as no surprise.

But is he serious? Electronic monitoring in Britain was first championed by a true blue Tory, Tom Stacey, who founded the Offender Tag Association in 1981 to promote it to the then Conservative government – with notable success. The first judge to use it in the USA, Jack Love, in 1982, was a Republican. Both these men had their humane side, but neither thought probation or social work offered enough public protection and wanted a bit more control over offenders undergoing supervision in the community.

The various forms of electronic monitoring provide exactly that. Radio frequency systems monitor presence or absence at a single location and can be used to make home detention or curfews a viable sentence. GPS tracking can be used to pinpoint offender’s movements in real-time, 24/7 if necessary, and to create exclusion zones around former victims’ homes or neighbourhoods. What’s not to like?

Both technologies can be used to punish or to support rehabilitation, or both, whatever is appropriate in individual cases. They have their pains and constraints. They work best if they are integrated with social supports and rehabilitation programmes, which combine care and control, and motivate people to reform. True, neither method guarantees that an offender will not re-offend, though the obviously increased risk of getting caught may make them think twice. True, too, that some canny offenders will verbally rubbish EM as a weak form of control that doesn’t affect them but, well, they would say that, wouldn’t they? – especially if they thought impressionable politicians like Mr Lamont were listening.

GPS is especially useful for high risk sex offenders who leave prison and a recent study of its use in California – nobody’s idea of a “soft touch” state – proved its worth beyond all argument. Not that no-one reoffended – some did, terribly – but for the majority supervision was more rigorous than anything that had been possible before. Even if you can’t stop reoffending, it’s always better to know where high risk offenders are in the community than not to know. And it gives those offenders who genuinely want to turn their lives round – and some do – a chance to prove it, something that keeping them in prison indefinitely – at the taxpayers expense – doesn’t allow.

“Imprisonment”, a wise Tory minister once said, “is all too often an expensive way of making bad people worse”. Is John Lamont unable to grasp this? Compared to prison all forms of electronic monitoring save the taxpayer lots of money, provide an element of control that other forms of community supervision don’t and, suitably integrated with rehabilitative measures, can contribute to reducing recidivism.

So what is John Lamont’s beef? EM is obviously not a solution to every crime and penal problem facing Scotland. Nobody is claiming that. A penalty does not have to be perfect to be useful with some offenders some of the time. Prison itself – a mostly hopeless place to effect rehabilitation, but we could never do without it – exemplifies this, but portraying prison as the only tough response to offending is lunacy at all levels – penally, socially and financially. Finding alternatives to some prison sentences for some offenders solves several problems simultaneously; what Mr Lamont thinks is “simply ludicrous” is plain common sense to smarter Conservatives.

Last October, a Conservative think tank in England, Policy Exchange, tore strips off central government for the way it contracts with – and overpays – the private sector to deliver EM. It also proposed a massive expansion of GPS tracking – too much in my view, compared to the limited, focused use of it in France, the Netherlands and Germany (on approximately 50 people each). But the English proposals have significant police support – the Police and Crime Commissioners (another Conservative Party initiative!) are championing them, and however much I disagree with the the scale on which they would like to use GPS I can’t deny the intelligent thought behind the arguments. Certainly compared to anything John Lamont has said.

That electronic monitoring has a useful place in modern penal systems seems like a no-brainer to everyone except John Lamont. Conservatives in other countries have found viable ways of using it – and even in Sweden it was intelligent Conservatives who first pushed for it to be used, although it has cross-party support now. Those Swedes subjected to it (all employed to some degree) pay a £5 daily contribution towards a victim support fund, means tested and with an upper limit – which seems like an idea most Conservatives would instinctively approve of.

Mr Lamont’s glib and ill-informed dismissal of electronic monitoring betrays and discredits the political tradition of which he purports to be a part. Some Conservatives have always had an honourable voice in penal reform – a serious commitment to rehabilitation and persistent doubts about the unnecessary use of prison – if no great appreciation of the social injustices which persistently fill prisons with the poor, but Mr Lamont seems to stand apart from the best of this tradition.

By all means let’s argue robustly about the best way to use EM in Scotland. That’s what politics are for. Serious politicians usually inform themselves about issues before debating, unless, as I fear with Mr Lamont, the name of their game is nihilistically trashing their opponents no matter what good ideas they come up with – even if your own political kin once owned those ideas! Mr Lamont’s opinions on crime control increasingly sound as aggressive and mindless as some of the thugs he wants locked up. Conservative colleagues, ordinary voters – and Scotland generally – deserve much better.

Mike Nellis is an Emeritus Professor in Criminal Justice at Strathclyde University Law School having been Professor of Criminal and Community Justice in the Glasgow School of Social Work, University of Strathclyde to 2010. He is a leading international authority on electronic monitoring, and has published extensively on the topic.