The ACT Government has been investigating how to implement electronic monitoring in the Territory. Photo: yasharu.
The ACT Government is now unsure who will trial its promised electronic monitoring scheme and no longer has an implementation date in sight.
That’s despite previous announcements in 2024 that the scheme was expected within months and the first cohort eligible for the program would include those on parole, limited bail, intensive correction orders (ICOs) and leave permits.
There’s no money in the ACT 2025-26 Budget to implement the scheme, with leftover previous money still being used to conduct feasibility studies and ongoing policy work.
Justice and Community Safety Directorate director-general Ray Johnson told a Budget Estimates hearing no priority cohort had been chosen at this time.
“They all carry a different level of risk … there might be a greater value but [also] a greater risk in different cohorts and there might be an order of batting … on where you start,” he said.
Corrections Minister Dr Marisa Paterson said a proposal was expected to be taken to Cabinet later this year.
“It is a really detailed scheme, there would need to be a lot of legislation introduced to implement [it],” she said.
“We want to get it right … we’ve seen other jurisdictions have fairly significant security breaches in management of private electronic monitoring in Victoria and NSW.
“We don’t want it to be a situation where implementation is rushed and there are adverse consequences.”
NSW recently passed a bill to ban private electronic monitoring bail conditions over concerns about the justice system’s ability to oversee private providers.
It comes after BailSafe collapsed without notifying the government.
Technological options to supervise serious offenders and defendants in the community have long been on ACT Policing’s wishlist.
Electronic monitoring can take many forms: live tracking that’s monitored constantly by police officers, an alarm system that alerts a victim if a perpetrator is within their vicinity, or making an electronic location record to check if a person is complying with conditions imposed at bail or parole hearings.
The government has received expressions of interest from electronic monitoring providers.
Mr Johnson and Dr Paterson stressed electronic monitoring wouldn’t be the fix-all some may expect.
“If someone is bailed, they should be bailed, and electronic monitoring is a tool that is used, rather than the perception that electronic monitoring will keep the community safe,” Dr Paterson said.
Mr Johnson said electronic monitoring was “only a means to an end”.
“I think sometimes the conversation can come to: electronic monitoring is a solver of problems.”
The ACT has considered using the technology twice in the past – a three-year program in 2001 for offenders on sentences of less than 18 months and a feasibility study by Corrections in 2016-17 which was dropped.
