The G4S-Tagged Crimewave
The British media has repeatedly reported that offenders tagged by G4S are violating their curfews with no, or disturbingly slow, consequences.
- A “one-man crimewave” was allowed to violate curfew 22 times without informing police, Member of Parliament Jon Trickett complained. According to Trickett, this man committed a number of crimes including burglary and public disorder. According to news reports, Trickett told his fellow MPs that police only found out about the violations when they caught the man committing a public order offense late at night, long past his curfew.
- Jason McKinven, sentenced to wearing a G4S tag after leading police on a high-speed highway chase in a stolen car, boasted to a local paper that “I go out drinking with my mates like I always did. That tag is not going to stop me or my mates from going out, because we just take them off.” Before the binge drinking session that led to his appearing before a judge for violating curfew, McKinven told reporters, he had taken off his tag on five separate occasions. “They told me it was failsafe and couldn’t be removed,” he told them, “but I just pulled it off. I know people who have put their tags around cats’ necks. I might put it under someone’s car and let them track it from there.” After appearing in court, local papers reported, McKinven bragged that he could “get away with anything.”