Taxpayers’ cash spent on tagging offenders set to triple

THE amount of money spent on tagging criminals is set to almost triple under a radical overhaul of the justice system.

The Scottish Government plans to spend £42 million on the electronic monitoring of thousands of offenders.

MSPs will vote this week on the expansion of tagging via the Management of Offenders (Scotland) Bill, with an effective ban on sentences of less than a year.

It means up to 10,000 criminals a year will be spared jail and given community punishments and electronic tags. The Government started tendering for a private company to run a new five-year tagging contract last month. The previous contract was worth £2.8 million a year and the new one is set to be almost £8 million.

Scottish Tory justice spokesman Liam Kerr said: ‘The SNP’s plan to abolish short prison sentences alongside this electronic tagging programme shows a deeply irresponsible focus on emptying prisons.

‘Once again the SNP has chosen a softtouch approach – keeping criminals out of jail and denying victims justice.’

A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘The Bill will, if passed, introduce new electronic monitoring capabilities. This could allow GPS-monitored exclusion zones which may help provide further reassurance to victims.

‘Courts will continue to be able to impose a prison term where they determine that community-centred sentences are not appropriate for a given offender.

‘Consideration of the offence committed will be a key factor for the court and, ultimately, anyone who breaches a community sentence can find themselves facing sanctions.’