/h/SharpSpring105
Criminal ankle bracelets Ireland
With all the talk at the moment about how we need more prison cells in the country along with stricter sentencing it got me thinking, why don’t they use ankle bracelets to enforce house arrests here. Surely this could be a good way to get non violent criminals out of the prison system and into a house arrest situation and replace them with people convicted with violent criminal behaviour (assault, robbery, car theft, joy riding etc)
The cost math alone makes this a no-brainer. €75,000 per prisoner per year versus €5,000 for electronic monitoring—that's a 93% reduction in cost for non-violent offenders.
This could be a lifeline for communities that bear the brunt of both crime and over-incarceration. In Dublin's inner city, we see families destroyed by short prison terms for minor drug possession—ankle bracelets keep people employed and with their children while still being held accountable.
England and Wales already ran this experiment. After expanding electronic monitoring in 2014, they cut short-term sentences by 20% with no uptick in crime. Ireland would be importing a proven system, not piloting an untested theory.
What happens when the GPS signal drops in rural Connemara or a basement flat? Technology fails, and each failure is either a false alarm that wastes police time or a genuine gap that a violent offender could exploit. We need to see the real-world failure rate before scaling up.
This unlocks something bigger—a chance to break the recidivism cycle. Non-violent offenders on house arrest can keep their jobs, maintain housing, and avoid the criminogenic effects of prison, all while we free up cells for the people who actually need to be behind bars.