The panel’s annual report for 2024 praised the running of the island’s prison but said that ‘many prisoners leave custody with a sense of accomplishment, only to feel abandoned upon returning to the community’.
Heather Mauger and Andie Fuller, part of the eight-person panel, said using electronic tagging meant those sentenced did not lose their accommodation, and therefore would not face the same pressures that inmates were currently facing at the end of the sentences.
‘Being in prison has a real stigma and follows you forever,’ said Mrs Fuller.
‘We have seen an increase in community sentencing and that’s terrific, but why not tagging? It just appears to have never been seriously considered here and it’s surprising it wasn’t when it has been used successfully in the UK for decades.
‘We don’t know the answers, we just pose the questions.
‘It is for deputies to consider.’
It is believed the subject of electronic tagging was on the agenda for a Home Affairs Committee meeting last week, where new sentencing guidelines were being discussed.
‘The committee has identified electronic monitoring as something they wished to look at part of a review of sentencing policy,’ said Home Affairs president Marc Leadbeater.
‘We need to consider a number of factors around this, including how it could become an alternative to a custodial sentence, and in turn how it could potentially cut costs at the prison.
‘All of this work is ongoing.’
Electronic tagging as an alternative to a custodial sentence has been used in the UK and most of continental Europe for more than 25 years.
The technology has been used in Guernsey only once, for a prisoner on bail.
Home Affairs did not respond to questions on if tagging equipment still remained on-island and can legally still be used in similar circumstances.
‘Tagging as a sentencing option would make it easier for the prison, the governor and staff if it was used for minor offences,’ said Mrs Mauger.
‘Reducing the prison population would make sense both financially and morally.’
It has been estimated that keeping one person in prison costs the taxpayer around £50,000 a year.
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