Inmates released from Canberra's jail are breaching their parole at an average rate of more than three times per week, prompting authorities to seek tougher means of deterrence.
Similarly, there were 128 breaches of Intensive Corrections Orders (ICOs) in the most recent reporting period, with 73 per cent of these offenders allowed to return to the Canberra community.
Still without electronic monitoring of offenders as an alternative, the ACT Sentence Administration Board is seeking wider powers to send the breachers back behind bars for short stints.
The latest annual report data released by ACT Sentence Administration Board revealed it conducted 160 hearings for parole breaches, with 65.4 per cent of those offenders allowed to return to the community.
There was a huge spike in breaches of Intensive Corrections Orders - 128 in 2022-23, a 58 per cent increase over the previous period - with 86 matters finalised. Of these offenders, 73 per cent were allowed back into the community.
However, ACT Attorney-General Shane Rattenbury said the latest alarming numbers were "comparable to ICO breaches reported between 2017 and 2021".
He said there appeared to be a link to the effects wrought by the COVID pandemic in 2021-22.
"The lower number of ICO breaches (81) in that [2021-22] reporting period was likely due to a decrease in the community corrections population and to changes in supervision and service arrangements for offenders in the community related to the COVID-19 emergency," he said.
While the ACT government's Justice and Community Safety directorate mulls over whether to introduce electronic monitoring of offenders for a fourth time, the independent Sentence Administration Board is seeking tougher powers which would suspend a parolee and send them back to prison temporarily.
"The board is reluctant to cancel a parole order, but considers a suspension would address immediate community safety concerns and/or motivate the offender to put in place additional community supports and comply with their parole conditions," the report said.
But managing ex-prisoner parole breach hearings are not always simple one-sitting matters.
As the report explained: "This is often the case where the offender has not finalised their accommodation or is awaiting the outcome of their application for a place in a residential rehabilitation program."
When a significant breach of an Intensive Corrections Order occurs and the board cancels an ICO, the offender immediately goes back behind bars for 30 days.
However, offenders can apply to have their original order reinstated, and half of those who applied were successful in the reporting year.
Electronic monitoring of ACT offenders - both inside and outside prison - as occurs in some other states, appears to be one logical alternative but to date, millions of dollars have been spent without an outcome.
The first attempt at it in the ACT was more than 20 years ago but that was quietly dumped in 2004. In 2008, the ACT government tried again, burning through $3.9 million with IT company NEC before its glitchy bracelet system was also scrapped.
In 2016-17, as Canberra's jail population exploded, the electronic monitoring idea was revisited at a desktop level for possible home detention, not for bail or parole.
It went no further.
In the UK, tens of thousands of offenders are geo-tagged for a whole range of reasons, from domestic violence, to alcohol-related violence, burglary and motor vehicle theft.
Under the ACT's latest assessment, $297,000 has been allocated to a fresh scoping study.
ACT Policing chief Neil Gaughan is supportive of the tag tech, and ACT Justice directorate supremo Richard Glenn told an Assembly Estimates hearing earlier this year he had received similar positive endorsement from Tasmania's police commissioner.
"As technology has improved, the electronic monitoring has become more feasible, particularly for smaller jurisdictions," Mr Glenn said, indicating electronic tags were not a standalone solution but would be part of a "wraparound service" for offenders on conditional release.
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