Major security failure left 5,000 offenders unmonitored across England and Wales

Faulty tags leave another 1,600 offenders unmonitored for weeks

Between January and April, more than 5,000 people who had been ordered to wear electronic tags were not fitted with one. 

A further 1,600 had devices that failed to transmit a signal for at least two weeks because of technical faults or a lack of charge.

The figures were highlighted in a new report from the Institute for Government (IfG), which warned that staff shortages have weakened probation supervision to the point that court sentences have become “essentially a fiction” for many offenders.

Electronic tagging was singled out as a particular failure, with the report concluding that the system was “performing poorly and failing to meet demand”. 

More than 5,000 people were not fitted with tags, representing 15% of all offenders ordered to wear one during that period.

The report also painted a troubling picture of probation services more broadly.

Of the probation delivery units inspected in 2024 and 2025, none received a rating above “requires improvement”, while two-thirds were deemed “inadequate”.

Report warns public trust could suffer as sentences lose meaning

Based on publicly available data and interviews with frontline staff, the research warned that the shortcomings could threaten public safety and leave offenders without adequate efforts to tackle reoffending.

Changes to sentencing could make those problems even harder to manage.

Under the 2026 Sentencing Act, which reduces the release point for many sentences, most offenders will eventually spend the final third of their sentence on licence in the community without active supervision.

The report cautioned: “This risks further undermining public trust in the criminal justice system and making sentences even more convoluted and opaque, including to victims.”

Cassia Rowland, the IfG’s associate director and the report’s author, said probation workers were struggling with disorganisation, constant changes and fears about their own safety, as well as the risks posed by the people in their care.

“It’s hard to set out just how demoralised and unhappy a lot of probation staff are. They feel everything is really chaotic, all of these changes are being flung on to them, they’re worried about their personal safety and the public protection risk of the people they’re managing,” she said.

Rowland also argued that the time offenders actually spend in custody and under supervision increasingly bears little resemblance to the sentences announced in court.

“The sentences courts are imposing are having less and less relevance to the time people are actually serving. The situation we’ve reached now is if you get given a six-year sentence, you’re most likely going to be spending two years in prison, two years on probation and then two years with conditions that no one is monitoring or enforcing. That’s just not a six-year sentence.”

Government urged to rethink sentencing

To address the problems, the report called for a gradual increase in probation staffing and the return of home detention as a way to ease pressure on prisons. 

It also urged ministers to make sentencing easier to understand, with clear periods set out for time behind bars and supervised release. No offender, it argued, should be placed on licence without active supervision.

The government has promised to expand electronic monitoring and ensure that released offenders face strict conditions. 

However, the report warned that increasing the number of people who need tags could add to the burden on already overstretched probation workers.

“Tagging more people is also likely to substantially increase the workload for probation practitioners, when they are already short-staffed and struggling,” the report said.

Rowland said the gap between what victims are promised and what the system can deliver was a major concern.

“This absolutely raises alarm bells. It’s very frustrating because victims are being made promises which potentially the system can’t meet.”