Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of electronic monitoring in (a) the management of offenders in the community, and (b) enabling police and probation officers to monitor compliance in real time, including compliance with exclusion zones.

Since 2024, the Department has published seven evaluation reports relating to the use of electronic monitoring (EM) in managing offenders in the community. These have reported positive findings, including perceptions from practitioners and people on probation that monitoring supports offender management. Impact evaluations have found a 20% reduction in reoffending among acquisitive crime offenders within 12 months of release and a 20% reduction in reconvictions for adults receiving curfew requirements as part of a community order.

We are actively working with police partners to further improve data and evidence; improve information quality; reduce unnecessary notifications; and in the longer term consider digital approaches to improve processes and save staff time. In particular, for Probation we have been piloting since the summer the Electronic Monitoring Data Insight tool, which enable close to real time access to GPS data for offenders that have a trail map requirement in their licence. This service will be nationally available to all Probation staff by December 2026.