Electronic monitoring and monitoring probation: The case of Ireland

792067EJP0010.1177/2066220318792067European Journal of ProbationMoss
2018
Original Article
European Journal of Probation
2018, Vol. 10(2) 120 –135
Electronic monitoring and
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The case of Ireland
Brian Moss
Coventry University, UK
Abstract
Set against an environment of diverse reforms across the domestic criminal justice
system, including new oversight arrangements, the current article considers how
probation in Ireland has almost entirely escaped notice. A case for probation oversight is
made on the basis of its caseload size but also a decade of unaccounted use of electronic
monitoring (EM). Global EM use highlights questions about domestic probation standards,
research and planning. Shortcomings within the legislative consultation process around
the tool’s role, the lack of any evaluation of EM suppliers and increasing focus on data
management to date also bolster a case for oversight of Irish probation. A principal
issue within this set of challenges for probation is how EM might adjust traditional
agency values. Overall, the contention is made that the assumed exceptionalism of
Republic of Ireland’s criminal justice system, that which acts as a buffer to change, may
no longer be valid.
Keywords
Electronic monitoring, inspection, Ireland, probation, values
Introduction
Calls for revision and reform have buffered the Irish criminal justice system over the last
decade. Some responses, such as restorative justice schemes (Gavin, 2015), or judicial
appointments have progressed slowly. Others, meanwhile, intended to address agent
conduct, procedures, multi-agency interaction, or deaths have not succeeded as intended
(Garda Inspectorate, 2018; Office of the Inspector of Prisons, 2015). Throughout this
period of flux, oversight of probation has largely gone unnoticed. The current article
Corresponding author:
Brian Moss, Coventry University, Priory Street, Coventry, CV1 5FB, UK.
Email: ac6635@coventry.ac.uk

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draws attention to this omission. Starting with an overview of the Irish criminal justice
model and developments in oversight especially, it is notable that any endeavour to sub-
ject probation to oversight has been lacking. Thereafter, drawing on global developments
in electronic monitoring (EM) application, the case for domestic probation oversight is
set out as being not just timely but overdue.
The Irish case
The Irish criminal justice paradigm has been characterised as historically closest to
Britain (Hamilton and Healy, 2016; O’Donnell and Jewkes, 2011). Its likeness is not
only a residual issue from British colonial rule, but its lack of foresight has also con-
sistently made Ireland vulnerable to policy transfer from its neighbour (O’Donnell,
2011), evidenced, for example, in wholesale adoption of the British community service
order. Nonetheless, scholars maintain that Ireland has not yet fashioned a resolutely
critical law and order stance like its neighbour, even if it has occasionally exhibited a
punitive streak (McCullagh, 2014; O’Donnell and Jewkes, 2011). This default position
has been attributed to State inertia on crime matters where, having failed to plan in
advance, it implements reactive reforms in times of perceived crisis. The Irish model
has also been characterised as one of exceptionalism to global trends if not always
coherently so. Thus, Judges have been reluctant to impose mandatory sentences on
drugs convictions but willing to imprison children while rehabilitation programmes
continue to co-exist alongside assembly line type, politicised crime policy (McCullagh,
2014) and prison use (Kilcommins, 2016; O’Donnell, 2011). Therefore, it has been
argued that the Irish criminal justice model does not ‘neatly align with either dystopian
or progressive agendas’ (Kilcommins, 2016: 339), rather it is set apart from trends and
fashions elsewhere (Hamilton and Healy, 2016).
Such uncertainty reflects accounts of Irish probation practice and thinking.
O’Donnell (2005, 2011), for instance, has described domestic probation as not having
moved to the British approach of monitoring, control and punishment. Probation use
has also remained under-used by the judiciary, constituting less than 5% of all court
disposals in the last six years (Courts Service data, various years). Culturally, mean-
while, Healy (2009) has identified the probation language and mission as shifting to a
managerialist tone and a political taste for punitiveness in the English style. In that
vein, the Probation Service introduced risk assessment tools in 2004, intended to assist
probation officers more accurately determine the likelihood of individual re-offending.
Underpinning this initiative was the service’s keenness to change, to re-brand and
transform (Probation Service, 2007).
Even still, more recently Hamilton and Healy (2016) argue increased actuarialism in
the Irish criminal justice system does not mean augmented punitiveness of the model as
a whole. They make the case that Irish criminal justice practice challenges established
concepts and measures within the field, particularly those relating to punishment. This
observation lends itself to establishing practice and monitoring developments in each
area of criminal justice work, work normally performed by an ombudsman or inspector-
ate. In Ireland, government reluctance prevented any such bodies emerging until 1980
when the Office of the Ombudsman was established. Sustained resistance to oversight

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may explain the late emergence of consistent, independent, and statutorily based over-
sight of any part of the criminal justice model until 2005. Embedded scandal then brought
forward police oversight in the form of a separate inspectorate and ombudsman while in
prison work the nascent inspector of prisons was formalised in 2007 (Martynowicz,
2011). Oversight of the Department of Justice and Equality that continues to be respon-
sible for the criminal justice system’s development, meanwhile, and found lacking fol-
lowing a further crisis in policing (Toland, 2014), was applied in principle from 2015.
Oversight of the judiciary, most recently via the Judicial Council Bill 2017, remained
contested as of May 2018. Taking stock of this mix of developments, while there is a
suggestion that effective oversight of Irish criminal justice has not transpired
(Martynowicz, 2011), a comprehensive account of this topic has yet to be compiled.
Moreover, were any such account to be drawn up it would have to make a greater inroad
into probation oversight than has been the case. Briefly featuring as a topic of discussion
in 2015 (Department of Justice and Equality, 2015a) but not since, probation oversight
has escaped most discussion, let alone implementation until now.
Accounting for Irish probation
An initial case for oversight of probation, as with any aspect of the system, might be
determined on two grounds. These are the presence of a crisis or the lesser issue of com-
plaint activity. Whereas crisis has commonly motivated reform elsewhere in the Irish
criminal justice system, there has been none in probation. As for complaints, while not
clarified anywhere on the Probation Service website, the Office of the Ombudsman can
receive complaints about the administration of probation. Yet, no complaints or indeed
any mention of probation is present in the Office’s last 20 annual reports. It is possible
therefore that complaints and systemic issues are so few as to make negligible the case
for probation oversight. However, there are wider reasons for proposing probation over-
sight. Low complaint numbers and lack of any crisis did not prevent establishment of a
probation inspectorate in England (1936) to which the Irish criminal justice model has
been historically and regularly compared. Moreover, one account notes that probationers
are reluctant to complain against probation professionals who are in a position to decide
their liberty. Consequently, ‘whole areas of probation activity … never come to notice’
(Shaw, 2011: 131) and mention of offender voice is rarely spoken or heard. That is, the
absence of complaints should not deter circumspection.
Further arguments can be made for the introduction of a domestic probation inspec-
torate in Ireland. Two of these relate to scale. Relative to England-Wales, the number of
individuals on probation in Ireland was much smaller in late 2017 (c.14,900 as against
265,000) suggesting a manageable caseload for any inspectorate. Second, based on the
absolute size of the prison population in Ireland at any one time (c. 3600 persons in
January 2018, Institute for Crime Policy Research, 2018), the existence of an Inspector
of Prisons but not one for probation, which counts three times as many service users, is
quizzical. A wider argument in support of introducing Irish probation oversight is that
probation entails issues of proportionate punishment/ supervision, ensuring staff profes-
sionalism and agency conduct in accordance with due process (Owers, 2010). Judged in
that vein, a domestic inspectorate would regularly check standards across these (Owers,

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2010) where at present there are none. A compelling case that evidences each of these
arguments is arguably already present in Ireland. It is a tool...