Big spike in electronically tagged criminals fleeing
THE number of criminals legging it while on electronic monitoring has more than trebled during the past three years, new figures reveal.
Twenty-three people on parole or released on conditions fled electronic monitoring in 2016/17, rising to 78 in 2019/20.
The bulk of the increase was made up of people absconding while on parole, according to Corrections data released under the Official Information Act.
A traumatised victim, whose attacker recently absconded while on home detention is calling for recidivist and violent offenders to be barred from community-based sentences.
Electronic monitoring of convicted criminals in the community is considered by officials to be a primarymeans of reducing the prison muster, per Labour Party policy. It is used to track and monitor convicted offenders serving communitybased sentences and some defendants on bail and parole.
Some are monitored using GPS trackers, allowing Corrections contractors to see if they are keepingwithin 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 to verify if the offender remains at home during their curfew hours.
Corrections considers someone to have absconded if they remove their ankle bracelet tracker without approval, fail to charge or connect their unit, or if they tamper with their bracelet.
Stuff recently revealed dozens of people on bail or serving sentences of home detention were breaching their conditions by interfering with their trackers by wrapping them in kitchen foil to block location tracking, a practice known as ‘‘foiling’’.
In 2015/16, 14 sentenced offenders on electronic monitoring absconded, according to figures from Corrections, rising to 54 in 2017/18 and 78 in 2019/20.
In total, 188 people removed or disabled their monitor during the past 10 years, of whom 37 were convicted of a sex offence.
Among the convicted offenders to have allegedly absconded is Temukaman and recidivist offender Michael Desmond Coles. On September 26, two weeks into a six-month sentence of home detention for inciting two high-speed police pursuits in Canterbury, the 39-year-old allegedly cut off his ankle bracelet and fled the property where hewas serving his stint.
Nelson woman Carole Marfell was attacked and robbed by Coles in Christchurch in 2004. She suffered a broken elbow and head injury and lives with the effects of the ordeal to this day, including post-traumatic stress disorder, she said.
Marfell was not told by Corrections that her attacker had absconded and was on the run, but when she found out the memories came flooding back.
‘‘I was having flashbacks of the robbery.’’ She hardly left her housewhile he was on the run and felt retraumatised.
‘‘It’s never-ending,’’ she said. In her view, all victims of offenders who abscond should be notified, as long as they consent to notification.
Correction has been approached for comment on the issue.
Marfell said only people convicted of low-level crimes should be eligible for home detention, and never recidivist or violent offenders, nor those who had previously escaped.
Coles was arrested 12 days after allegedly fleeing and charged with breaching the conditions of his home detention.
In the year from April 2018, the prison population fell by 5.3 per cent, while the number of people on electronic monitoring rose by 7.4 per cent.
There has been a steady fall in the total prison population this yeaer, from just over 10,000 at the start of the year to fewer than 9500 by July. It is understood to have been accompanied by a commensurate rise in the electronic-monitoring muster.
National Party corrections spokesman Simeon Brown said the rise was an inevitable consequence of the increased use of electronic monitoring of offenders in the community to reduce the prison population.
‘‘This is one of the flow-on effects of this push,’’ Brown said.
‘‘Our position has always been we want to reduce crime, not just the prison population.’’
Corrections Minster Kelvin Davis acknowledged the increase was the result of signifiant growth in the number of people on electronic monitoring.
However, he said the Government’s efforts to reduce the number of people locked up had not come at the expense of public safety.
‘‘There has been significant growth in the number of people subject to electronically monitored bail and the proportion of the prison populationwho are on remand, which is why the numbers of abscondees have risen.
‘‘But I amadvised that only a very small percentage of people subject to electronic monitoring are identified as potentially interfering with their equipment – less than 1 per cent of the overall number of people who are electronically monitored.
‘‘Corrections operates 24/7 and have staff and technology that are expert in identifying any potential instances of someone not complying with their monitoring.’’