While we will not comment on the specifics of any ongoing legal matter, we are deeply concerned by the NSW Government’s continued reliance on electronic surveillance as a condition of bail.
‘Bail is a critical safeguard of our legal system. It allows people to remain in the community while awaiting trial, to work, to care for their families, and to prepare their defence. Natural justice demands that people are innocent until proven guilty,’ said Debbie Kilroy. ‘Outsourcing bail monitoring to private companies destroys these principles. It places people’s freedom in the hands of corporations with no public accountability, eroding the very foundation of “innocent until proven guilty,”’ said Debbie Kilroy.
‘The recent collapse of BailSafe, a private company contracted to monitor people on bail, has left people’s liberty dependent on corporate stability. One person has already been sent back to prison because the company pulled out, not because of any breach of bail conditions,’ said Debbie Kilroy. ‘This is not justice, it is punishment without cause. No one should lose their freedom because a business decided to walk away from a contract,’ said Debbie Kilroy.
‘The absurdity of replacing ankle monitors with hourly “selfie checks” should be a wake-up call. Why request these selfies? What does this achieve? Demanding that someone send a photo every hour for twelve hours a day does nothing to address so called community safety, it simply creates an exhausting regime of compliance,’ said Debbie Kilroy.
‘Yet news outlets have responded with fear and suspicion directed at the person subjected to these orders, instead of asking why our legal system is relying on such flawed measures, or how a private company was ever given this level of control over people’s liberty,’ said Tabitha Lean. ‘The anger should not be aimed at those under surveillance, but at a legal system outsourcing its responsibilities and at corporations that can walk away without consequence,’ said Tabitha Lean.
‘What hourly selfies really achieve is the normalisation of constant surveillance, the blurring of the line between prison and home, and the quiet expansion of carceral control into our daily lives,’ said Tabitha Lean.
The NSW Government must protect the integrity of bail, stop outsourcing justice to private surveillance companies, and invest in solutions that address the causes of harm, not simply replicate the prison system in people’s living rooms.
For further comment, please contact Debbie Kilroy on 0419 762 474 or Tabitha Lean on 0499 780 226
