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Report: U.K. Teenagers On Bail To Be Electronically Tagged
LONDON, Feb. 26 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Teenagers in the U.K. charged with serious crimes are to be electronically tagged while on bail awaiting trial, in an effort to stop them re-offending, news agencies reported.
Speaking to BBC's online news service, U.K. Home Secretary David Blunkett said the scheme was designed to stop them from re-offending.
The move is in response to soaring levels of street crime and robberies. It is designed to keep 12- to 16-year-old criminals in check if the courts believe they are likely to commit further offences on bail, the BBC said.
"The project - expected to tag 1,800 young tearaways in its first year - is also being introduced to restore confidence in the justice system, which magistrates believe is failing to stop young troublemakers appearing before them time after time. Courts will have the power to impose a curfew order which will be monitored by a security company via an electronic tag. The plans will also free up places in remand centres, which in some parts of the country are in short supply," the BBC said.
Six areas will pilot the scheme from April, before it is extended to the whole of England and Wales in June.
"Even if the police catch them and the courts take action, they are invariably back on the streets again and the kids are laughing at the police, saying 'you can't catch me'. They are cocking a snook at the whole system and people are sick and tired of them being put back on the streets, unsupervised, untagged, insecure and carrying on what they were doing before," Blunkett said.
He said the eventual plan was to introduce proper secure remand accommodation but it was an expensive and long-term solution.
"So, I want to combine imaginative ways of keeping people out of secure accommodation or prison but keeping the community safe by ensuring they can't re-offend," he added.
Electronic tagging, almost the punishment of vogue, allows a constant watch to be kept, making sure that former inmates do not even step outside their front door during curfew hours.
A former U.K. cabinet minister, Jonathan Aitken, who was released in 2000, after serving seven months of an 18-month sentence for perjury and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice wore a tag for two more months, which ensured that he stays at home from 7 pm to 7 am.
John Alford, the former star of TV drama “London's Burning”, who was imprisoned in May 2000, for supplying cocaine and cannabis, was released from prison and fitted with a tag.
In the first 11 months of 1999, 14,464 prisoners have been released early with tags since the initiation of the Home Detention Curfew scheme at the start of the year.
There had been predictions that 30,000 prisoners would be taking part, and some reports say that institutionalized prisoners prefer to stay inside than deal with the hassle of tags, reported the BBC.
A spokeswoman for the Prison Service said the scheme had a 95% success rate. 
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