I firmly believe that. I firmly believe that the Swedish way and the German way of using electronic monitoring in the context of existing probation facilities is the best way to use electronic monitoring. I think a small element of surveillance in the context of a larger rehabilitative program is a perfectly sensible way to go about managing often quite difficult people.
I do not want the probation service to become a complete surveillance agency. I do not want to see electronic monitoring replace or displace perfectly serviceable rehabilitative measures. I think they can be combined well, and to some extent, in principle, we've combined them well in this intensive supervision and surveillance project in England and Wales. The principle of that particular project is a good one.
However, unlike Sweden and Germany, we have a private sector organization working with a public sector organization to make the package work. I ask myself why it is not just given to the statutory service. Why not just give it to the service that is already involved in rehabilitating offenders? Rehabilitation should be the primary aim here, even if you have to have elements of public protection at some points in the process. Electronic monitoring is best used as an aid to rehabilitation, not as something that stands on its own as a means of controlling offenders' behaviour.