The Ministry of Justice has announced plans to pilot the UK’s first ‘proximity tagging scheme’ to keep offenders away from victims.

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The idea is that the victims of say sexual assault or domestic abuse will have a GPS locator in their phone, which pings if an offender on early release from prison and tagged in the community comes within a pre-set distance of them. A police or probation officer can then intervene accordingly.

This is part of the big expansion of tagging proposed by the Government given the pressure on prison places. It is being marketed as a scheme to ensure dangerous offenders are ‘under constant scrutiny’ and watched ‘more closely than ever before’ to better protect victims and the public.

There’s nothing wrong in my mind with the principle of using technology to deter offending - an area where policing has long lagged behind. What ministers will not admit is that their tagging scheme is being used to justify the early release of some very dangerous criminals. And Im concerned that giving the police and Probation Service new toys will achieve nothing without the personnel or resources to properly support them.

As a criminal defence solicitor specialising in sexual offences, I am aware of the pressures the authorities are under in handling the vast and growing number of individuals accused and convicted of sexual offences. Measures like Sexual Harm Prevention Orders have been in place for many years, and electronic tagging is a reasonable step in enforcing them. Unfortunately, this does not take into account the dire state of the Probation Service, which last year reported a staffing shortfall of 10,000 personnel. With over 70,000 registered sex offenders in England and Wales, 1,300 new officers also does not come close to what is needed right now - let alone after a radical expansion of electronic monitoring.

There is the very reasonable argument that, if a person is deemed sufficiently unsafe as to require tagging, then they are not safe enough to be let loose on the streets. Convicts should be leaving prison punished and reformed - and should not be released if there is a reasonable chance they will offend again. There is surely a risk that dangerous predators undeterred by this new technology may instead simply find themselves another victim - an unsuspecting target who does not have this tracking app on their phone.

The tagging scheme might give the past victims of sexual crimes advanced notice that their perpetrator is in their vicinity, but I wonder just how many police forces actually have the capacity to mobilise officers and respond in time before another incident takes place? If the crux of this pilot is to assess whether former prisoners are adhering to their license conditions - rather than allowing police to respond proactively to ongoing threats - then the reality is that it will be purely reactive, rather than preventative. A woman may therefore be raped twice by her abuser, and I cannot imagine that his return to prison after early release would offer much comfort.

It is right that the government is considering technology in improving its approach to policing and probation, but it is never going to be a silver bullet. Schemes like this have the potential to work but also may fall down in practice and are unlikely to make the general public feel much safer.

Marcus Johnstone is a criminal defence solicitor of over 20 years, and the managing director of PCD Solicitors, a nationwide criminal defence firm specialising in sexual offences.

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