Expansion of electronic tagging in England and Wales will put public at risk, watchdog warns

According to The Guardian, the UK's public spending watchdog is warning that a rapid expansion of electronic tagging could put public safety at risk. The National Audit Office says the system is already under significant strain and needs robust upgrades before it's stretched further. The number of people electronically monitored across England and Wales has doubled to twenty-eight thousand seven hundred over the past five years. Under government plans to ease the prison capacity crisis by managing more offenders in the community, an estimated twenty-two thousand people could be tagged each year from twenty twenty-seven. The watchdog's message is blunt: fix the system first, then scale it.

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