Every step you take, we’ll be watching you

Gang members fitted with GPS tags to prevent them entering rivals’ territory

VIOLENT criminals and gang members in London are being fitted with GPS tags to allow police to track their moves in a radical new drive against crime.

One teenager has already been fitted with an ankle tag under a pilot scheme — but breached the restriction order on his movement in days. He has been re-arrested and is back in custody.

Normally electronic tags are used to send an alert if the wearer breaches a curfew. The GPS tag can be programmed to limit wearers to a geographical area.

Police say the tags could be used to prevent gang members entering a rival gang’s territory or deter them from attending certain events, such as Notting Hill Carnival. The Met’s Trident gangs unit is running the scheme in a crackdown on knife crime.

Under the trial, criminals are being fitted with GPS tags as part of criminal behavioural orders. CBOs, which replaced anti-social behaviour orders, are increasingly being used to tackle persistent offenders in gangs but it is the first time a GPS tag has been issued as a condition of the order in London.

Detective Chief Superintendent Kevin Southworth, the head of the Met’s Trident Crime Command, said: “One of the key restrictions is geographical and in the gang context that is hugely important because territory is a big deal. We can say to someone, ‘You cannot go to that side of the estate’, for instance, ‘because if you do the GPS tag will let us know and we will arrest you’ . ” Commander Jim Stokley, head of the Gangs and Organised Crime Command, said: “This is an innovative and useful way to combat gangs but we can also use it around knife crime to restrict individuals to where they can or can’t go.

“We are trying to use a range of approaches from prevention, intelligence-led stop-and-search patrolling as well as judicial approaches to tackle knife crime.”

He said Trident officers were also being posted inside youth jails to investigate gangs and offences committed behind bars. Detectives are now based at the young offender institutions in Greenwich and Feltham. Officials say they are witnessing a reduction in gangrelated offences.

Mr Stokley said there was also a major emphasis on prevention, with detectives going into schools and helping charities and crime prevention agencies. In one scheme called Divert in Brixton, out of 118 individuals referred to the programme one has re-offended and 48 are in full-time employment.

He said: “We want to do that in all parts of London. I believe this is the type of action that is sustainable in the long term in stopping gangs and violent crime. Whether it is a young person joining a gang and picking up a knife or whether it is just a young person picking up a knife we need to look at how we can intervene.” @_jdavenport