It would help them by ensuring they know exactly where the offender is or was at a particular time. The system that was tested in the pilot study was a GPS, so we had the ability in real time to know exactly where the offender was. For example, if they, as a result of a condition, were required to remain at their house and the GPS monitoring showed the person leaving that location and going somewhere else, we would know immediately and would be able either to use a parole officer or, if it was a very high risk situation, to contact the police to intervene.
The other area where it can help is if there appears to be a minor breach of the location requirement. That's an opportunity for the parole officer to sit down with the offender and say, “Look, the record indicates that you walked next door and visited your friend over there, and you're not allowed to do that, so let's talk about why you're not supposed to do that and what the consequences for you could be.”
One of the things it gives, as our commissioner mentioned a number of times, is this ability to engage in a conversation over working within the confines of their conditional release, but you have firm information that there was a minor breach of the condition.