Electronic monitoring of offenders in the administration of criminal justice

The commission of criminal offences has conventionally been responded to by the criminal justice system with the imposition of punishment in the form of a term of imprisonment, which may be accompanied by a pecuniary fine.1 Contemporary criminal justice includes non-custodial2 sanctions for the commission of less serious offences, such as community service orders, probation, restitution, restraining orders and so forth.3 Criminal justice systems have in recent decades benefited from the technological developments in the use of electronic devices as a criminal justice measure to monitor the activities of offenders, both pre-trial and post-conviction.4 Electronic monitoring (hereinafter referred to as EM) of offenders is already used in England and many European countries such as Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Switzerland and Spain.5