CBO sees youth tagged for the first time

Thames Valley Police (TVP) has become the first force in the country to place a GPS tracking device on a child in an effort to deter crime and anti-social behavior.

A 15-year-old boy with convictions for robbery, burglary, threatening behavior and possession of an imitation firearm has had the one-piece ankle tag fitted.

The boy, from Oxfordshire, will have to wear the device for six months after Oxford Youth Court ruled that a Criminal Behaviour Order should be imposed against him following use of an imitation firearm to threaten a 14-year-old girl in Oxford and an incident where he brandished the weapon in Didcot.

The Buddi tag allows police to track offenders’ movements, creating maps which can be compared to locations of reported anti-social behavior.

The devices are water proof as well as tamper proof and can be adapted to notify forces when an offender leaves or enters a certain area.

Information is then delivered via sophisticated monitoring software accessed from a secure web portal.

PC Mike Ellis, an anti-social behaviour officer at TVP, said he believes the order – the first to be placed on a youth – will be very successful.

“He must wear the tag at all times and it allows us to see if he is involved in any anti-social behaviour we get reported to us,” PC Ellis said.

“This is really to act as a deterrent to the offender as they know we will be able to see whether they were near where a crime took place.

“The tag allows us to see whether he is behaving himself. It is also in the offender’s interest because if he is not doing anything wrong, and not going to the places he should not be going, then we will have that recorded too.”

In Hertfordshire, crime was cut by 41 per cent among some of the county`s most prolific offenders in the first 12 months of use of similar tags.

Lancashire Police estimates it has saved almost £1 million by using 14 tags at a cost of less than £10,000 and last year Essex Police became the first force in the UK to give live evidence taken from a Buddi tag.

In March, then Mayor of London Boris Johnson gave funding for a pilot scheme which will see up to 100 of the most high-volume young adult offenders in north and east of the capital fitted with GPS tags.