Commentary on ‘Upgrading electronic monitoring, downgrading probation’
| Published date | 01 August 2014 |
| Date | 01 August 2014 |
| DOI | 10.1177/2066220314544102 |
| Author | Wendy Fitzgibbon |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
European Journal of Probation
2014, Vol. 6(2) 192 –193
© The Author(s) 2014
Reprints and permissions:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/2066220314544102
ejp.sagepub.com
Commentary on ‘Upgrading
electronic monitoring,
downgrading probation’
Wendy Fitzgibbon
London Metropolitan University, UK
The Probation Service in England and Wales is experiencing turbulent times. This com-
mentary critically reflects on the use of electronic monitoring in offender management
and its relationship to developments in probation, responding to Mike Nellis’s article.
This complex, interesting and topical article deserves careful reading. It examines the
forthcoming expansion of electronic monitoring (EM) by police, health authorities and
the courts as part of the relentless implementation of the neoliberal agenda by the
Ministry of Justice. One aspect of this is the reduction of public sector probation to a
rump National Probation Service (NPS) managing high-risk offenders amounting to 30
percent of the total. The remainder will be farmed out to Community Rehabilitation
Companies (CRCs) constituted from consortia including voluntary sector organisations
but dominated by the private security industry.
Against this background an expansion of electronic monitoring capacity to 75,000
offenders per day makes a lot of sense. Such technology is second nature to the private
security industry. It will be cheaper and less labour intensive than traditional skilled pro-
bation work. The shift from careful, skilled rehabilitation work to surveillance, monitor-
ing and basically keeping offenders quiet renders these old skills redundant and electronic
monitoring administered by G4S security personnel is the way to go. Indeed, the proba-
tion service, seemingly only too willing to sign its own death warrant, has been already
piloting monitoring kiosks for low- to medium-risk offenders.
The question is how this will work in practice and what will be the fate of traditional
desistance-led rehabilitation work still located in the voluntary sector and what remains
of the old probation trusts? How will the complex organisational structures now in place
for probation fit with the equally complex new structured, four-tiered approach envi-
sioned by the government for electronic monitoring contracts?
As the article makes clear, in the third round of EM monitoring contracts the Ministry
of Justice is keen to devolve the management of Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and
Corresponding author:
Wendy Fitzgibbon, Criminology, London Metropolitan University, Room TM1-33, 166–220 Holloway Road,
London, N7 8DB, UK.
Email: w.fitzgibbon@londonmet.ac.uk
544102EJP0010.1177/2066220314544102European Journal of ProbationFitzgibbon
2014
Article
To continue reading
Request your trial