The electronic monitoring program is being expanded to the Clarenville region effective today, May 1. This region spans from Bellevue to Port Blandford along the Trans-Canada Highway and all of the Bonavista Peninsula.

Electronic monitoring provides enhanced supervision for offenders on probation and conditional sentence orders where the court has imposed the electronic monitoring condition. It also enhances the supervision of those on a temporary absence from correctional facilities where electronic monitoring is deemed appropriate.

Offenders in the program wear ankle bracelets that provide 24/7 location data to probation officers to help enforce conditions such as curfews and no-contact orders. Electronic monitoring also allows offenders to work and support their families and be contributing members of society.

Expanding the program to the Clarenville region is designed to increase public and victim safety in the region. For example, one feature of the technology involves alerting authorities when an individual breaches an area they are restricted from entering or leaving, known as exclusion and inclusion zones. The size of these zones can vary from a single building to a larger geographical area. This helps protect survivors of intimate partner violence and other violent offences as well as ensuring offenders abide by court-ordered conditions.

Data generated from the expansion to the Clarenville region will inform future expansion plans to offer the program in additional areas of the province.

Budget 2024 – Transforming Our Health. Our Economy. Our Province. provides $293,000 for the electronic monitoring program to help lower levels of recidivism and improve safety for victims, staff and the public.

This is the first expansion of the electronic monitoring program since it was launched in 2020 and was partially made possible by using existing resources at the Clarenville probation office.  Electronic monitoring is already offered in Labrador and on the Northeast Avalon.

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“Electronic monitoring strengthens our ability to protect victims and at the same time helps holds people accountable for their actions. The Clarenville expansion is another step toward bringing this public safety tool to more areas where we have the technology and infrastructure to make it happen.”
Honourable John Hogan, KC
Minister of Justice and Public Safety and Attorney General

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