By Chris Vedelago
Privately operated bail services, including GPS monitoring, will be banned from Victoria after a series of scandals in which for-profit companies failed to properly track dangerous offenders or were corrupted by organised criminals.
The state government will announce on Wednesday that commercial operators will no longer be able to provide monitoring services worth tens of thousands of dollars a year that allow wealthy offenders to stay out of jail ahead of criminal proceedings.
Victorian Attorney-General Sonya Kilkenny has vowed to end the use of private bail providers.Credit: Jason South
The move comes after the collapse of two major operators in 2024-25, including one that, as revealed by The Age, failed to notify authorities it was no longer monitoring eight offenders under its control and another where the owner was implicated in a scheme to help put an alleged ringleader of Melbourne’s tobacco war back on the street.
“It is not appropriate for unregulated, unaccountable private companies to be offering electronically monitored bail services,” Attorney-General Sonya Kilkenny told this masthead.
“We’re ensuring electronic monitoring of bail is no longer outsourced to private operators who lack proper oversight and accountability.”
Alleged drug traffickers, gunmen, arsonists and money launderers are among the accused offenders who have been granted bail under the supervision of a private provider. Use of the services is approved by order of a judge or magistrate.
These private services allowed wealthy offenders to pay to be monitored by GPS to enforce judge-ordered curfews and other restrictions.
Underworld sources have said the services were known to be wide open to abuse and manipulation, amounting to little more than a pay-for-bail scheme.
The ban is part of a suite of changes to Victoria’s bail laws promised under Premier Jacinta Allan’s further amendments following a year marked by rising youth crime and high-profile cases of offenders being granted bail after violent offending sprees.
The ban on private operators would take effect shortly after the bill was passed. There is believed to be only one private operator left in the state but details of what will happen to people on their program remain unclear.
Kilkenny said on Wednesday that when the state government reviewed the private electronic monitoring program, there were 14 offenders using the service.
She said courts would have a range of other measures to call upon once the ban was implemented, with police playing a key role in monitoring bail conditions.
The legislation adds flexibility for government-owned electronic monitoring programs, but Kilkenny said this was only if the state chose to explore this option in the future and would be subject to significant oversight.
Allan said the ban won’t affect the trial of ankle bracelets for young offenders, which is government-run.
“It’s not acceptable to have unauthorised, unregulated companies working in such an important part of our community safety work,” she said.
In February, this masthead revealed that one of the most prominent private bail providers, BailSafe, had ceased operation without informing police or courts. It left at least eight suspected offenders unsupervised and with their locations unknown.
At the time, BailSafe owner and operator Jackson Oppy had been charged with possessing methylamphetamine and steroids, and later with violating a personal safety intervention order.
BailSafe had been operating, on paper, from an address that allegedly belonged to a door handle factory.
Other scandals have included the apparent collaboration of one operator, Australian Forensic Treatment Rehabilitation (AFTR), with serious organised crime groups to circumvent monitoring provisions.
In August 2024, owner of AFTR David Millar was charged with 27 counts of perjury and perverting the course of justice after it was alleged he had provided a fake GPS watch to an organised crime “client”. Millar took his own life late last year.
The Allan government said its changes to bail laws would not affect a separate trial of electronic monitoring and intensive bail supervision for repeat alleged youth offenders being run by government agencies.
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