Increasing Compliance on Home Detention Based Sanctions through Utilisation of an Intensive Intervention Support Program

Electronic monitoring: The experience in Australia

“…Given that increased application of EM in Australia seems likely, there is a need to ensure the use of EM generally conforms with the evidence base on good practice. For instance, Martinovic (2013: 280–290) has highlighted the need to:…”

“…However, it is worth noting that ‘EM technology is constantly advancing, becoming less intrusive and cheaper overall’ (Martinovic, 2013: xii). Some recent innovations include ‘dead reckoning’ when a GPS signal is lost, which enables the offender’s movements to be estimated, taking into account their direction, altitude and acceleration.…”

“…Some recent innovations include ‘dead reckoning’ when a GPS signal is lost, which enables the offender’s movements to be estimated, taking into account their direction, altitude and acceleration. This method can achieve an accuracy of 90% and is particularly useful in determining whether an offender has remained inside a building (Martinovic, 2013: 36). It is also anticipated that, over the next decade, the use of a Global Navigation Satellite System will expand to combine tracking information from over 100 satellites from various countries (Martinovic, 2013).…”

“…In particular, it raised the profile of these sanctions by misleadingly portraying them as ‘elitist,’ that is, mostly used by white-collar criminals and upper-class offenders. In addition, the media has extensively reported instances when offenders on these sanctions have taken off monitoring devices and/or engaged in serious re-offending (Martinovic, 2013; there have been mixed findings in the international context: see Graham and McIvor, 2015). This is despite the fact that, in reality, instances of placing affluent offenders on such orders and serious re-offending are isolated.…”

“…There are two main forms of technology involved in the use of EM: radio-frequency monitoring, which commenced in the 1980s but became used more extensively from the early 1990s, and Global Positioning Systems (GPS) monitoring, which has been used since the late 1990s (Martinovic, 2013). A third type of EM, remote alcohol monitoring, is not considered in this article (for recent discussion, see Graham and McIvor, 2015).…”