Electronic bracelets used to track prisoners keep ‘dropping out’

ELECTRONIC bracelets monitoring risky inmates “drop out’’ up to 10 times a day, a prison source reveals, as the seventh sex offender in eight years absconds from Corella Place in Ararat.

19/05/2008 NEWS: Glenn Wheatley release. Electronic ankle bracelet, like the one Glenn will wear while on home detention, during the remainder of his sentence.

ELECTRONIC bracelets used to monitor risky prisoners are “dropping out’’ up to 10 times a day.

A prison source has revealed the monitoring system was failing as the seventh sex offender in eight years walked out of the so called “Village of the Damned’’ in Ararat yesterday and remains on the run.

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Andrew Darling remains on the run after he walked out of the “Village of the Damned” yesterday.

The Herald Sun has also been told pressure is mounting on the prison system after a spate of medium-security prisoners have been reclassified and relocated to prison farms because of overcrowding.

He said it had resulted in those inmates being shifted and made to wear failing electronic bracelets, making it simple for them to escape.

At minimum security Dhurringile Prison there has been angst over the bracelets dropping out in “black spots’’ only for guards to find the prisoner still within the jail.

Officers monitoring the electronic system from Ararat, who also monitor Dhurringile, are calling officers at the jail up to 70 times a week to find prisoners who are “dropping out’’, the source said.

He said bracelets worn by serious sex offenders placed on extended supervision orders residing at Corella Place in Ararat — who are deemed too dangerous to return to the community after jail release — were also inadequate.

“They are effectively not locked up and this is the difficulty,’’ the source said.

“Bracelets are not proving effective. They don’t work. The whole monitoring system is a joke.’’

A spokesman for the Minister for Corrections Edward O’Donohue said there were no issues with bracelet monitoring at Ararat.

The Herald Sun has previously been refused access to reports to the Corrections Commissioner detailing issues at Corella Place.

Serious sex offenders at Corella Place cannot be fenced in because they are no longer serving a prison sentence.

The old bracelets, which were to be changed on July 7 last year, alert staff only that the wearer has gone, but not where.