THOUSANDS of dangerous criminals are roaming the streets free to commit further crimes because they are not being fitted with ankle tags when they should be, a damning report has revealed.
A total of 5,450 offenders should be monitored by a device but the Ministry of Justice has admitted they do not know where they are.
A total of 5,450 criminals are roaming free without an ankle tag they should be wearing, a report has found Credit: Getty
The Ministry of Justice admitted that it did not know their whereabouts as they are not being monitored Credit: Getty
The shocking figure is around 15 per cent of all those who should be tagged after getting out of prison, or as part of a court order.
The dire assessment of the tagging system from the National Audit Office (NAO) comes as Labour plans to make more offenders serve their sentences in the community, rather than in prison.
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By their own estimates an extra 22,000 individuals – including dangerous criminals – will be tagged per year from 2027.
In September thousands of criminals including rapists and killers will qualify for early release from jail.
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The changes rely heavily on a functioning monitoring system to ensure any breaches are reported and offenders can be sent to prison if they break their terms.
But the report, published today, warns that both police and probation staff say they have “limited capacity” to respond to any breaches, such as a criminal entering an exclusion zone near their victim.
In 2025, only 45 per cent of offenders were tagged during the first two attempts to reach them.
Shadow Justice Secretary Nick Timothy said the report showed that criminals could breach restrictions imposed on them “with impunity”.
He said: “Labour’s reckless plan to release rapists and paedophiles from prison early is putting victims and the public at risk.
“This shocking report shows there is no plan to protect the public once they are back on the streets – criminals who are tagged are breaching restrictions with impunity.
“Labour must back the Conservatives’ proposal to introduce emergency legislation to ensure sex offenders are kept behind bars.”
Serco, the contractor paid by the taxpayer to tag criminals, claimed they were delivering an “excellent service” and tagging a record number of people.
They said: “We are proud of our dedicated colleagues delivering these services and we have delivered, successfully, a record increase in the number of people being monitored as a result of four early release schemes and have the resources in place to support the additional planned increase in the coming months.”
A MOJ spokesperson said: “This Government inherited a failing tagging system with record backlogs. As this report shows we have worked hard to fix this, with install rates up by nearly 50% since 2024.
“Public protection is our priority, which is why we’re investing £100 million in electronic monitoring, tagging offenders before release for the first time and strengthening victim protections via new alert systems – all of which will help cut the number of unmonitored offenders.
“This is in addition to our record £700m investment in probation, recruiting 2,300 trainee probation officers over the last two years, and recruiting a further 1,300 this year – making sure the Probation Service has the resource it needs to keep dangerous offenders under closer surveillance than ever before.”
