Key information
Publication type: General
Contents
The Mayor’s Office for Policing And Crime (MOPAC) has been at the forefront in the use of electronic monitoring, running pilots on Alcohol Abstinence Monitoring Requirement tags & GPS tags for persistent offenders & those who committed knife-related offences.
In March 2021, MOPAC expanded its use of GPS tags, piloting their use with individuals convicted of Domestic Abuse. Tags were usually fitted as part of an individual’s licence conditions when released from prison - with the aim of deterring perpetrators, increasing the effectiveness of enforcement action and keeping victim/survivors safe by managing compliance with licence conditions.
A process & performance summary was published by MOPAC Evidence & Insight (E&I) in September 2022. This 2025 report contributes indicative impact analysis of the domestic abuse tagging pilot - which found that the tagging scheme significantly reduced reoffending rates for high-risk perpetrators.
Insights
- Those released from prison and fitted with the Mayor’s GPS tags were 45 per cent less likely to be charged with an offence in the 12 months after being fitted with a tag compared to the 12 months before being tagged.
- This reduction increased to 63 per cent for violent offences.
- There was a 50 per cent reduction in the number of charges for those who were tagged over 24 months.
- Enforcement was significantly strengthened, with a total of 232 offenders recalled back to prison for non-compliance with licence conditions. Of these 232 recalls, over two thirds (154) involved the use of GPS data to detect non-compliance.
- Tags were fitted from March 2021 - May 2024. They were used 699 times on a total of 639 people, with 54 people going on the tag more than once.
- The majority of those fitted with the tag were male and the average age when tagged was 36 years old, with most being aged 25 to 34.
- The average duration of a tag was 104 days and 99% of individuals were on the tag for 6 months or less.