Better to be a prisoner in your own home

An electronic tag can enable early release from jail. Just remember not to put the rubbish out after curfew. By Angela Devlin

I call it the modern ball and chain," says Liz. "It's like a heavy diver's watch made of block rubberised plastic. It's fitted round my left ankle and it bangs on the bone - the skin's quite bruised already. Still, it's a lot better than being in jail."

Last week the Home Office announced plans to expand the electronic tagging system for prisoners by sentencing minor criminals to home curfew instead of sending them to prison. This follows Prison Service claims that the new scheme - established to control the movements of "early release" prisoners - has been a success, with only 5 per cent having to be recalled for re- offending or breaking curfews. Only one third of eligible prisoners have so far been released on the scheme.

Liz, 36, is one of the first group of prisoners to be released under the new Home Detention Curfew, introduced at the end of January. She was sentenced to six months in an open prison for perverting the course of justice - she forged character references in a court case - and is now more than halfway through her five-week tagging period (60 days is the maximum possible).

Regarded by the prison as a well-behaved inmate - she worked in the officers' mess - Liz (not her real name) met all the criteria for tagging. She had less than two months left to serve, and her sentence was of the required length: between three months and four years. She poses no risk to the public and is considered unlikely to abscond or reoffend.

Liz also had a home to go to, another important criterion which rules out a lot of prisoners: "I've got my own house, but I live there alone, and that caused a problem, because you have to have someone at home to `welcome you back' - that's the rather quaint expression they use. A probation officer had to go round and interview my neighbours. Luckily, I've lived there 11 years and they knew the situation and they said, `Yeah, of course we'll welcome Liz back!' Thank God for them. Otherwise, I'd still be in jail. Lots of prisoners won't be so lucky."

Liz's tagging licence began on a Wednesday in April and she took the train home on her own. "I got back at 11.30 in the morning but the security firm didn't send anyone to tag me for hours. It was like waiting for the gas man. By eight o'clock I'd got so worried that I rang them and they said `Just relax, we'll be along soon'. At 9.45pm a man and a woman finally arrived. They were a bit brusque but they were OK. They fitted the tag strap on the tightest notch. I've managed to squeeze an elastic bandage underneath to stop it hurting. The device is waterproof so you can have a bath or shower, and it's shock-resistant so you can play sports, though I'd be too embarrassed to go to the gym. I've also put off my cervical smear test for the same reason. Some security firms offer wrist tags but I wasn't given that choice. You can't wear boots but you can cover the tag with a thick sock and long trousers, though I've learnt to cross my legs in a certain way to stop it showing. My curfew ends before the summer, so it'll be off before the weather gets too hot."

Liz is forbidden to leave home between 7pm and 7am, the standard curfew hours. "The security officers asked me to walk round my house to set the boundaries. The tag constantly sends out signals to a monitoring box which is connected to the phone and sits next to it. I call it Big Brother. The signal is passed down the line to the firm's monitoring centre. If you don't have a phone they'll fit one for you, but it can't be used for other calls.

"If you have a fax or answering machine you have to disconnect them. If you tamper with any of the equipment, or break the set boundaries, you can be taken back to jail. The other day my mum was doing a bit of dusting and she accidentally touched the box. The firm were on the phone immediately. It's also easy to forget about the curfew. The other evening I was about to go out the back door to the wheelie bin and just stopped in time."

Liz is free to seek work during the day. The curfew hours can be adapted in special circumstances, for example to fit work shift patterns, to attend a funeral or wedding of a close family member, or if someone has to be rushed to hospital. A prisoner tagged at the same time as Liz went back to the dairy farm she runs with her husband. She was trying to get her curfew hours changed so she could milk the cows, which meant resetting the boundaries.

Liz hopes her own qualifications - a university degree, a postgraduate diploma in Personnel and 14 years' experience in the working environment, latterly as a local government officer - will help her find work. She certainly needed all her skills to secure her release on a tag, because prison staff were too overworked to bother. "I had to chase up the prison and probation staff daily," she says. "There was nobody dedicated to dealing with the tagging administration. One officer was given a few extra hours a week and she was snowed under with paperwork. So it was up to me to hassle everyone; for instance, to get my home-check results faxed to the prison."

This lack of administrative support within the prisons may explain why only one third of eligible prisoners have so far been released early on the tagging scheme. Liz also feels the criteria for tagging should be reconsidered: "The decision to tag is purely the prison governor's and it seems pretty subjective. I know they have to be cautious, but it's not just about risk assessment. Prisoners who are popular with staff are given priority. Lots of women prisoners have young kids, or care for elderly relatives, but that doesn't appear to come into it. A prisoner's home responsibilities are not part of the criteria."

There are 2,074 prisoners on Home Detention Curfew, though within any one year, up to 35,000 prisoners should go through the system, making this the most ambitious tagging scheme in the world so far at an annual cost of pounds 35m. When the scheme began, Prison Service Director General Martin Narey said the objective was not to cut the prison population but to improve the chances of rehabilitation for released prisoners.

Liz says she is worried about the lack of support: "You are very much left to your own devices during those 12 daytime hours, and without support you could easily be tempted to reoffend." But so far default rates are low: of the 3,045 people who started on the scheme, only 166 have been recalled to prison.

Liz is determined she won't be the 167th: she has less than three weeks left before Big Brother leaves her home. Until then she'll be having plenty of early nights and waiting till morning to fill the wheelie bin.