England: Thieves to be fitted with GPS tags to reduce reoffending

Data from tags will let police check details of burglaries against movements of known offenders to determine whether they might be suspects.

The scheme, to be trialled from April 12, will track those who have served a year or more. They will wear the devices for up to 12 months.

Ministers hope to extend the scheme nationwide to more than 7,000 offenders.

More than 50 per cent of those convicted of burglary and theft commit the same crime again within a year. Ministers believe the tags will act as a strong deterrent.

Kit Malthouse, the crime and policing minister, whose 20-year-old son was held up at knifepoint two years ago, told The Times: “By putting a GPS tag on these offenders, we’ve effectively got a probation officer on their ankle 24 hours a day monitoring where they go.

“We think that will be a big deterrent to offending in the first place and will help the police with detection for those kinds of geographically based crimes.”