Dozens of extra staff hired to manage GPS tracking of domestic violence offenders months after issues emerged

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6 days ago

The WA government will spend tens of millions of dollars hiring extra staff to manage the GPS tracking of some of the state's most serious domestic violence offenders.
Under laws that took effect late last year, it has been effectively mandatory for serious, repeat family and domestic violence offenders to be electronically monitored when out in the community.
Since then, 70 people have been charged over 94 breaches, according to WA Police.
The Justice Department initially struggled to implement the laws, with the ABC revealing a court had been told monitoring outside of Perth was not possible.
The government continued to play down the problems, saying magistrates should only release serious, repeat offenders on bail when it was safe to do so, with or without monitoring.
At the time, Premier Roger Cook said he had not been advised staffing was behind the issues, despite the Justice Department recruiting for an extra 12 full-time equivalent positions.
It has now emerged that an extra 38 full-time equivalent (FTE) staff will be added to the ranks of WA Police and the Justice Department, at a cost of around $23 million over the next four years.
The opposition's corrective services spokesperson, Adam Hort, said that showed the government had not been up-front about issues with the mandatory monitoring and was now playing catch-up.
"It's an admission by this government that they've rolled out a system undercooked, that needs extra resources," Mr Hort said.
"We clearly haven't seen enough investment into this really, really important reform, and instead when it's called out they've said there's nothing to see here.
"Well, the budget doesn't lie, the budget has the facts."
The Justice Department said, as part of its $19.1 million boost, another 12 FTE positions would be added on top of those announced earlier in the year.
"These additional funds will enhance monitoring and response capabilities in regional locations, as well as supporting victim-survivors through the court process," a spokesperson said.
"The department has monitored implementation of the [legislation] since it came into effect to inform funding requests to government."
Of those staff, six will be regionally based community corrections officers.
Earlier in the year, the WA Police Union had raised concerns that its officers were being called on for routine maintenance in regional areas, including replacing flat batteries, when Justice officers could not respond.
In an early-April letter explaining the decision not to support electronic monitoring in the regions at that stage, Corrective Services Commissioner Brad Royce wrote there could be delayed responses to "administrative issues" without police support, which he said created an "unacceptable risk".
Mt Hort said that was "an admission that regional electronic monitoring was undercooked, understaffed and didn't have the resources that it needed from the beginning".
WA Police will benefit from an extra $14 million, which it said would go towards 26 extra FTE staff.
Police Minister Reece Whitby told parliament those funds had been requested "well before" issues became public earlier this year.
Police Commissioner Col Blanch told budget estimates this month that police usually only got involved after a breach.
Mr Blanch said the new staff would primarily support detectives, by doing tasks like preparing evidence for disclosure to the accused.
"Having more family violence electronic monitors in the community no doubt results in more breaches of those monitors, or breaching of other offences that are now in the new act," he said.
"So the team that we have focused on is the prosecution team, so our frontline police can remain in the field."
The Justice Department said as of early July, 159 family and domestic violence offenders were being monitored under the legislation, with 38 living outside Perth.
Deputy Commissioner Allan Adams said those police positions would help teams working in Perth on behalf of regionally based officers.
"They also take a very proactive effort into engaging lawyers around prosecutions and trying to get earlier pleas, and working with investigators and defence lawyers to try and reduce the time taken to compile briefs and the like," he told estimates.
In response to questions from Mr Hort, Commissioner Blanch said officers were not routinely changing batteries in trackers, but acknowledged they could be called on for those kinds of tasks.
"The first thing we will do with the [Justice Department] is a risk assessment as to whether any administrative response needs to be done within the time frame prior to its arrival," he said.
"We are purely there as a backup should a risk be assessed for other reasons.
"If a battery runs out or there is a technical issue and we are concerned for the victim of that relationship, we may respond, but we will do our risk assessment first, noting that victim safety will always be our priority."
Do you know more about this story? Contact Keane Bourke.