Abolishing electronic monitoring in Australia

Abstract

©2013 Centre for Crime and Justice Studies 10.1080/09627251.2014.902200 Who says that punitive forms of electronic monitoring (EM) are expanding everywhere? The EM-home detention programme in Victoria was abolished in 2011 by the conservative coalition parties, which formed the state government in late 2010. Programme closure was a part of coalition parties’ wider agenda of ‘improving sentencing practices and enhancing community protection by ‘getting tough on crime.’ Other law and order reforms included abolishing suspended sentences, tougher minimum sentences for serious offences, extra police on the street, and the introduction of Victoria Police Protective Services Officers at train stations. Although at first hand it simply seems that a populist political ‘tough on crime’ agenda resulted in the closure of the EM-home detention programme, an important underlying issue over the years had been that the programme struggled to attract sufficient offender numbers due to a lack of stakeholders’ support. This too however, reflected a sense that EM – at least radio frequency EM, used for curfews and home confinement – for all the rhetoric associated with it, was just not punitive enough.