The Emergence and Use of GPS Electronic Monitoring in Germany: Current Trends and Findings

ABSTRACT

In Germany, Electronic Monitoring (EM) is currently applied in two different areas. As of 2000, in the German state of Hesse, Radio Frequency (RF) EM has been used for probationers to avoid (re)imprisonment. Approximately 4 years ago, a federal law came into force allowing for Global Positioning System (GPS) EM of high-risk offenders after prison release. In spite of these ongoing areas of application, a pilot project featuring GPS-EM of prisoners was carried out as a means of release preparation in the German state of Baden-Württemberg from October 2010 until March 2012. This article gives an overview of the different areas of application of EM in Germany and analyzes its nationwide use. Furthermore, the rationale and the outcome of the pilot project in Baden-Württemberg are presented in detail. In conclusion, the authors raise serious doubts about the rehabilitative potential of EM with respect to the current evaluative findings.

KEYWORDS:

• Electronic monitoring
• high-risk offenders
• rehabilitation
• surveillance

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Dr. Christopher Murphy for his editorial assistance. Thanks to Anne Bräuchle who provided the actual figures of the German federal GPS tracking of sexual and violent offenders; she is a research associate at the University of Tübingen and evaluates the German federal scheme. Thanks also to Prof. Mike Nellis for his comments.

Notes

The most famous example happened in the village “Insel” in Germany where two released sexual offenders began to live in 2011. The inhabitants were divided into opponents and supporters; the supporters, however, were threatened and did not dare to participate in the media debate under their real name; http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/gesellschaft/protest-gegen-ex-sicherungsverwahrte-in-insel-a-837766.html (last visited: July 25, 2014).

The pilot project was evaluated by the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law, Department of Criminology, Freiburg i.Br, by Hans-Jörg Albrecht, Gunda Wößner, & Andreas Schwedler.

Technical equipment was provided for by a commercial contractor. Technical data were handled and forwarded by a private service provider in North Rhine-Westphalia, that is, the joint monitoring center of the German states was not in charge of the Baden-Württemberg project.

After one of these subjects was assigned to the control group he was able to avert imprisonment by paying the required fine. In the end, only one subject in this application group was electronically monitored because the third person’s home was located outside the probation service’s catchment area.

For more information see the project Web site, http://www.mpicc.de/ww/en/pub/forschung/forschungsarbeit/kriminologie/elektronische_aufsicht_im_voll.htm.

Dropouts led to uneven sample sizes which had to be corrected by means of block randomization.

See http://goodlivesmodel.com/information#General.

Some of these requirements could not be checked prior to the randomization process; in some cases changes to an individual’s judicial status took place.