Official Statistics

Electronic Monitoring MI Publication, England and Wales: June 2025

Published 28 August 2025

Applies to England and Wales

1. Main Points

This publication presents management information on the use of electronic monitoring as at 02 June 2025.

• The total number of individuals fitted with an electronic monitoring device was 23,977.

Figure 1: Number of individuals fitted with an electronic monitoring device, by order type (excluding Specials^{[footnote 1]}), England and Wales, as at 02 June 2025 (Source: Table 1.1)

• Post-release orders were the largest group with 8,327 individuals (35% of the caseload).

• Court bail orders made up the second-largest proportion (34%) of electronically monitored individuals. At 02 June 2025, 8,134 individuals had court bail as their primary order type.

• Immigration orders were the third-largest group with 3,994 individuals (17% of the caseload).

• Court sentences (community orders and suspended sentence orders) were the fourth-largest group with 3,427 individuals (14% of the caseload).

Figure 2: Individuals fitted with an electronic monitoring device, by tag type (excluding Specials^{[footnote 1]}), England and Wales, as at 02 June 2025 (Source: Table 1.1)

• Location Monitoring (GPS) devices account for 51% (12,318) of individuals fitted and monitored with this device.

• Curfew (RF) devices account for 34% (8,125) of individuals fitted and monitored with this device.

• Alcohol Monitoring (AM) devices account for 18% (4,261) of individuals fitted and monitored with this device.

2. Statistician’s comment - Data quality

New contracts to deliver the Electronic Monitoring service were awarded in October 2023, with Serco taking over the delivery of the service from Capita in May 2024. Details of the contracts can be found here. To ensure the publication series continued to meet high standards of accuracy and quality, official statistics were paused to allow us to adapt coding and establish new data assurance processes. This assurance includes ongoing work to ensure duplicate and inconsistent records are addressed.

The data used in this publication is from 2 June 2025. This information has been provided to meet the needs of users and public interest. Prior to this date, it is not possible to reliably count unique individuals using the two systems (Capita and Serco), as some individuals appear in both systems, and some only in one, and there is no common unique identifier for individuals between the two systems. This is further hindered by missing or inconsistent data to enable suitable identification.

As the service continues to transition between systems, data has been compiled from multiple sources. To identify duplicate records, matching is performed using name and date of birth. While this method captures most duplicates, some may remain undetected due to slight variations in how individuals are recorded across different systems.

Although there is confidence in the data, figures may be subject to change as further assurance processes are completed. Internal checks have identified data discrepancies affecting less than 5% of the caseload when compared with the operational database. These discrepancies will be reviewed and, where appropriate, the data will be updated accordingly.

This is an ad-hoc release which presents management information on the electronic monitoring caseload, tag type and cohort. It is not classified as an official statistics publication, reflecting the ongoing work to validate and assure the data before regular official statistics can resume. Quarterly management information will continue to be provided until the data is of sufficient quality to be designated as official statistics.

The data presented in this ad-hoc release is not directly comparable with data from previous years due to changes in the definition and methodology used to classify individuals as “tagged”.

Previous definition: An individual was considered tagged if they had any equipment assigned to at least one of their orders, regardless of whether it was active or installed.

New definition: An individual is now considered tagged if all of the following conditions are met:

• Equipment is assigned to at least one of the orders, through a successful visit;
• The minimum required components for device monitoring have been input so that at least one monitoring requirement is fully met. Monitoring requirements are created to enable the monitoring of 7 possible enforceable conditions.
• There has been at least one confirmed successful installation of the device.

3. Background

Electronic monitoring supports probation services, prisons, courts, the police, the Home Office, and the wider justice system in England and Wales. It is a way of remotely monitoring and recording information on an individual’s whereabouts or alcohol consumption, using an electronic device that is typically fitted to an individual’s ankle. Electronic monitoring may be used:

• as a condition of court bail;
• as a requirement of a court sentence, primarily community orders and suspended sentence orders;
• for Home Detention Curfew;
• as a licence condition following release from custody;
• as a condition of immigration bail, managed by the Home Office; or
• to intensively monitor a small number of individuals, including: some of the highest-risk offenders managed under Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA); those granted bail by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC); and those made subject to Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures (TPIMs).

An individual may be given several orders at the same time and/or over the course of a year. Therefore, it is likely that there will be more active orders at any one time than there are people being monitored and some individuals will be dual-tagged. If an individual has multiple orders: - when counting order notifications, each notification will be counted separately; - when counting individuals, the individual will be included in one order cohort once according to a defined formula. Please see the technical note for more details.

We are aiming to resume our official statistics series as soon as the data meets our high-quality standards. We would therefore welcome feedback on the content and format of the previous series, as well as any improvements you would want to see. Please refer to the user engagement section for further information.

4. Location Monitoring (GPS)

GPS devices allow the monitoring of:

• compliance with exclusion zones;
• attendance at a required activity or appointment;
• an offender’s whereabouts, known as trail monitoring;
• multiple conditions or requirements, if necessary, such as a combination of exclusion zones, curfew, monitored attendance and trail monitoring.

The total number of individuals fitted with an electronic monitoring device, and whose primary order was a location monitoring order as at 02 June 2025 was 12,318.

Figure 3: Individuals fitted with a Location Monitoring device, by order type (excluding Specials^{[footnote 1]}), England and Wales, as at 02 June 2025 (Source: Table 1.1)

As at 02 June 2025, the number of individuals fitted with a GPS device by cohort was:

• 4,202 Court bail, 34% of the GPS monitored individuals.
• 4,008 Immigration, 33% of the GPS monitored individuals.
• 3,391 Post release, 28% of the GPS monitored individuals.
• 717 Court sentence, 6% of the GPS monitored individuals.

5. Non-Fitted Devices (NFDs)

Electronic monitoring using a non-fitted device was introduced in November 2022 for the immigration cohort. These devices utilise periodic biometric verification as an alternative to fitted devices. Individuals with a non-fitted device have been included within the GPS cohort for the purposes of this analysis.

6. Curfew Monitoring (RF)

RF devices allow the monitoring of a curfew, where an offender must be at a specified location at specified times.

The total number of individuals fitted with an electronic monitoring device and whose primary order was a curfew order as at 02 June 2025 was 8,125.

Figure 4: Individuals fitted with a Curfew Monitoring device, by order type (excluding Specials^{[footnote 1]}), England and Wales, as at 02 June 2025 (Source: Table 1.1)

• Court bail RF orders make up the largest proportion (49%) of RF monitored individuals. At 02 June 2025, 3,950 individuals had RF court bail as their primary order type.

• Post-release RF orders were the second-largest group, with 3,001 individuals (37% of the RF caseload).

• Court sentence RF orders (community orders and suspended sentence orders) were the third-largest group with 1,174 individuals (14% of the caseload).

• As at 02 June 2025, there are no individuals with immigration RF orders as their primary order type. Home Office Immigration Enforcement (HOIE) have primarily used GPS devices since 2021, which has significantly reduced the numbers of RF devices used.

7. Alcohol Monitoring

There are two types of alcohol monitoring:

• Alcohol Abstinence and Monitoring Requirement (AAMR) – this may only be used when sentencing for alcohol-related criminal behaviour and it imposes a total ban on drinking alcohol for up to 120 days. Compliance with the ban is monitored electronically using an alcohol monitoring device, which monitors for the consumption of alcohol via an offender’s sweat. An AAMR can only be imposed if the individual is not alcohol dependent or has an Alcohol Treatment Requirement (ATR), and the individual is an adult (18 years or over).

• Alcohol Monitoring on Licence (AML) – this is an additional licence condition for offenders released from custody whose offending and risk is alcohol related. There are two licence conditions available, total abstinence from alcohol, or a requirement that the offender complies with requirements specified by their probation practitioner to address their alcohol needs, which will include restricting alcohol use.

Figure 5: Overall number of individuals with an Alcohol Monitoring Order, England and Wales, as at end of 02 June 2025, June 2021 to June 2025 (Source: Table 1.1, June 2025, and Table 4.1, March 2024)

Alcohol monitoring orders have not yet transitioned between systems, and so do not face the same quality issues as detailed for electronic monitoring orders. This has therefore allowed for the inclusion of a timeseries showing AM orders since 2022, with the dotted line representing a change in the time period of data used. Before the line, data was provided as of 31st March, after the dotted line the data refers to 02 June 2025.

The total number of individuals fitted with an alcohol monitoring device as at 02 June 2025 was 4,261.

From the introduction of AAMR in October 2020 through to 6 June 2025, the devices did not register a tamper or alcohol alert for 97.3% of the days worn.

8. Further information

8.1 Accompanying files

As well as this bulletin, the following products are published as part of this release:

• Data tables

• Technical note

8.2 User engagement

We are conducting user engagement of these electronic monitoring statistics and want to hear your feedback on how these statistics can be improved. This will help make our statistics more useful and accessible for our users. All feedback will be confidential and anonymised.

Please complete our short survey to help us improve our publication.

8.3 Contact

Press enquiries should be directed to the Ministry of Justice press office.

Other enquiries about these statistics should be directed to Data and Analysis at the Ministry of Justice:

Electronic Monitoring Performance and Statistics
Analysis
Ministry of Justice
10th Floor
102 Petty France
London SW1H 9AJ

Email: ppas_statistics@justice.gov.uk

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Produced by the Ministry of Justice

Alternative formats are available on request from ppas_statistics@justice.gov.uk

1. Please refer to Annex A within the technical note ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴