Simple kitchenware foils Corrections tracking
Dozens of people on bail or serving sentences of home detention are breaching their conditions with the help of a humble product found in most Kiwi homes, Corrections investigations have found.
Internal departmental documents and sources on both sides of the law have shed light on the extent and effectiveness of the use of tin foil to interfere with ankle bracelet electronics.
The practice is known in the underworld and among prison officials as ‘‘foiling’’.
A person who was recently on bail waiting trial, and subject to GPS monitoring, said foiling was widely known but far from a surefire means of evading tracking.
The most common approach to interfering with the location-tracking ability of the ankle bracelet unit is to wrap it tightly in tin foil, they said.
Electronic monitoring is used to track and monitor convicted offenders serving communitybased sentences and some defendants on bail.
Some are monitored using GPS units, allowing Corrections contractors to see if convicted criminals are keeping within the areas dictated by their sentence, such as staying home and/or away from certain areas.
Others, mainly people on community detention, are fitted with less sophisticated Radio Frequency (RF) gear, used for curfew checks.
Figures in heavily redacted documents released by Corrections to the Sunday StarTimes under the Official Information Act show 45 people were confirmed as ‘‘foilers’’ in the month of June 2019, compared to 10 in June of the previous year.
A separate fact sheet on tracker interference from 2018 showed Corrections identified 59 possible cases.
Of those, 10 were deemed high-risk offenders and monitored by the department’s specialist GPS Immediate
Response Team.
Since July 2018, Corrections had initiated 17 arrests related to tracker interference, the fact sheet said.
The department declined to supply related training material, on the grounds it could comprise Corrections’ ability to effectively detect and prevent foiling.
The prison population has declined from about 10,500 in 2018 to under 9500 in July.
That decline has been accompanied by a significant rise in the number of people serving community based sentences.
Electronic monitoring is seen as a primary means of reducing the total prison population.
It is understood that when a person foils their ankle bracelet, their home unit switches from showing the monitored person in the address zone to giving a reading as if the person remained at the address but was unable to be found.
As a result, the monitoring contractor can often assume the equipment is faulty and needs replacing.
However, the Star-Times understands that due to the increase in the number of people on electronic monitoring, the primary call centre is swamped and has difficulty keeping up with its workload.
As a result, unless the offender is deemed a high risk, there can be a significant delay in sending a staff member to their home to check the equipment, sources said.
A Corrections spokeswoman said ‘‘only a very small’’ percentage of people subject to electronic monitoring were identified as potentially tampering with their equipment – fewer than one per cent.
She said: ‘‘ We have teams operating 24/7 who are experts in identifying any potential instances of non-compliance.
‘‘If an offender is noncompliant there are a range of actions we can take, including escalating to police.’’