A former senior police officer has said pioneering monitoring technology to safeguard domestic abuse victims “absolutely does save lives”.
Debs Alderson spoke about the two-way GPS monitoring system at the FutureScot digital justice and policing conference in Glasgow.
She told the conference she oversaw a pilot project using the system when at Northumbria Police, before she retired this August with 30 years’ service, having served for a time as assistant chief constable.
Alderson said the system involved fitting a GPS tag to domestic violence offenders on a voluntary basis as part of their police bail conditions.
The companion part of the system was given to the victim, and a monitoring firm received an alert when the two came within a set distance of each other.
The firm would analyse whether action was needed and contact police if necessary.
Alderson, now co-managing director of community interest company Addressing Domestic Abuse, said: “Victims gave feedback to say their wellbeing was massively improved.
“You can imagine a victim without a proximity system – a lot of the time they walk around and they’re absolutely terrified because they don’t know where a perpetrator is going to be, or if they’re going to turn up unexpectedly.
“With the proximity system, they knew they were safe. As long as the proximity alert didn’t go off, they could go anywhere they wanted, and they felt that confidence to do so.”
Concerns raised by officers of a rise in unnecessary incident referrals through proximity with no threat – for example if both victim and perpetrator were shopping in the same area but not heading towards each other – did not materialise, Alderson said.
She explained the monitoring firm’s risk assessment meant referrals were only made when there was “a real, present risk that needed to be addressed”.
She added: “That gave the police that early notification and gave them time to intervene before harm was caused to that victim. It was really effective.”
Former police officer Debs Alderson
Abusers told her they changed their behaviour and did not approach their victims because they knew they would be immediately held to account.
“You’ve got the prevention aspect there and the positive impact on wellbeing for victims and their families, I think, is immeasurable,” she told the conference at Strathclyde University in October.
“For me, this absolutely does save lives, and evidence from where this has been deployed abroad speaks for itself,” she said.
“This is a business-as-usual model in Spain and Portugal. There have been no femicides [in cases where] they’ve been deployed since 2009 and that speaks volumes.
“One murder because of domestic abuse is one too many, and if these units can prevent that, it’s an absolute no-brainer for me.”
Karyn Macintyre, development manager of Allied Universal Electronic Monitoring – which she said was the first firm to provide two-way monitoring – explained Scotland currently uses radio frequency technology to set a range from a home monitoring unit when setting up exclusion zones for domestic abusers.
She said: “That does really limit the area of exclusion. And often what will happen is, by the time we get an exclusion zone violation using radio frequency technology, whatever that perpetrator is there to do is already underway. So there’s no intervention. There’s no time for intervention.”
She said using GPS technology allowed a more dynamic zone of exclusion and can send an alert to a victim through a smartwatch app.
A Scottish Government spokesperson told 1919: “We are expanding the use of electronic monitoring within the criminal justice system, and are committed to exploring the latest advances in emerging technologies including GPS.
“A new electronic monitoring contract will start in 2027 and as part of the procurement process, we will engage with service providers to identify cutting-edge solutions that best support our justice system.
“Any use of GPS to monitor victims, however, requires careful consideration and engagement with victims and support organisations in service design.”