Western Australia’s Department of Justice is trying to have the bail of a man from Denmark who allegedly raped a dependent shut down. His release was conditional on it, and he was under electronic monitoring. This state of affairs has laid bare longstanding issues with the state’s electronic monitoring program. Law enforcement and legal officials have been very vocal about these issues, particularly with respect to resource constraints.
As a result, the police union is becoming impatient with the program’s lack of success. They cite lengthy inaction between breach assessments and responses, including described delays for breaches affecting high-risk offenders. Delays range from six to more than twelve hours. This negligence calls into question not only public safety, but our ability to keep tabs on the worst offenders. The reality of the situation has led to rising calls for significant changes to the program. This program is part of the tracking of people on bail or parole.
Resource Challenges in Electronic Monitoring
Judges such as Ms. O’Donnell, the magistrate in charge of the bail case, have pointed to a systemic issue. She attributes the problems with electronic monitoring to insufficient resources given to the Department of Justice. She stated, “I don’t think that it is a case where the court ought to be constrained by resourcing issues or whether it’s the fact that the government did not consider things adequately when passing the legislation they did.”
The Western Australia Police Union is all in on this perspective. They note that officers are now mostly responsible for basic upkeep on monitoring devices, especially in rural communities. This upkeep frequently consists of replacing flat batteries, which is not a job that should be pushed onto our law enforcement officers. Peter McGee, a representative from the union, remarked, “It’s another example of our members being called on to fill holes in a lack of resources from other departments, to do routine things they should be doing.”
Our state government to a large extent has recently passed legislation requiring GPS tracking for serial fam-doms. The Department of Justice addressed these resource shortages by obtaining $27.8 million over four years. This funding resulted in the immediate creation of 35 new full-time positions. A further 12 full-time roles are forecast to come on stream in the next FY.
Delays and Safety Concerns
Yet even with these efforts, slow response to breaches continues to be the top area of concern. These days exponentially increase the risk for law enforcement and the community they serve. Sergeant Gary Simpson highlighted these challenges, stating, “If the monitoring equipment were to fail out of hours, they couldn’t respond in a timely manner.”
This failure to respond in time and on the right scale is shocking. Each time the perpetrator violates their limited movements, it sets off an automatic alarm. Officers are unable to proceed without a warrant first issued by the Department of Justice for the arrest of these violators. Paul Papalia, a spokesperson for the Department of Justice, emphasized that “any breach of an offender’s restricted movements generates an immediate alert and officers will respond rapidly.”
Peter McGee further elaborated on the issue by noting that “that delay can be hours, anything from six hours to 12 or more hours.” Such delays put victims at greater risk and diminish the preventive impact that electronic monitoring can have.
The Path Forward
The Department of Justice maintains that it has sufficient staff embedded in the State Operations Command Centre available 24/7 to monitor individuals subject to electronic tracking. In a response, a spokesperson claimed that this staffing model was intended as a means to provide strong oversight nationwide.
There is still some disappointment around whether or not this system is robust enough to allow for ongoing tracking. The Chief Executive of Adult Community Corrections (ACC) noted that electronic monitoring is not able to provide constant monitoring. Increasingly, this limitation has created deadly challenges for the organization. These monitoring shortcomings endemic to this location are not able to be surmounted at this late juncture.
WA Premier Roger Cook has assured me that he has received no calls for resources from the health department. This has understandably left a lot of Americans asking how these issues could remain unaddressed while law enforcement is under increasing strain.
