More Real Time Monitoring For Community Safety
Hundreds of domestic, family and sexual violence defendants have been captured by mandatory electronic monitoring laws following landmark legislative reform and a Malinauskas Government investment into community safety.
Since October, more than 300 defendants charged with serious breaches of a domestic violence-related intervention order have been required to be electronically monitored on home detention bail – helping to better protect victim survivors.
The new laws, implemented late last year, ensure defendants are subject to round-the-clock monitoring, with real time alerts issued when strict conditions are breached.
Latest DCS figures show over 1,400 offenders, including dozens of defendants who have seriously breached a domestic violence intervention order, are currently subject to electronic monitoring.
This overall figure is nearly double the number of offenders on electronic monitoring under the former Liberal government, in 2018.
The State Government has invested an additional $2.2 million in 2025-26 to support electronic monitoring, which enables authorities to closely supervise offenders who are sentenced to home detention, granted bail by a court or released on parole.
The increased level of monitoring has detected 28 breaches for offenders serving a sentence on home detention this year, amid a high degree of compliance – compared to 57 breaches in 2018 during the Opposition’s term, when far fewer electronic monitoring devices were in use.
Dedicated Corrections staff are available to respond to alerts in real time, including when devices are tampered with – helping to keep victims and the community safe.
220 additional electronic monitoring devices have been rolled out, allowing breaches to be detected more effectively. A system-wide upgrade has also been completed to ensure more efficient and effective responses.
This investment has led to a 30 per cent increase in monitoring of adults on bail whose movements can be tracked 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Tough new laws are backing this approach, with the Government making it harder for a range of serious offenders to get bail and – if granted – ensuring they face stricter conditions. Any breach can lead up to two additional years behind bars.
Breaches range from the slightest tampering of a device to offenders failing a drug or alcohol test.
South Australia has the highest rate of any state of adults on remand in prison – around 45 per cent of the prisoner population – because they did not receive bail.
The Government is building record capacity across the system to further support community safety, opening or investing in more than 750 prison beds over the past three years – including $72.4 million in this year’s Budget for an additional 116 beds.
As put by Emily Bourke
We are monitoring more offenders round-the-clock and ensuring perpetrators of domestic violence face the strictest of conditions if they are granted bail.
Reforms implemented provide another layer of protection for victim survivors and are an important step towards addressing this scourge.
We have rolled out hundreds more electronic devices and better equipped Corrections staff to detect breaches more effectively and in real time.
This is in stark contrast to the Liberals’ approach where fewer devices resulted in more breaches by offenders who brazenly flouted conditions imposed.
Our Government has implemented tough new laws and increased capacity across the prison system to help keep those who put the community at risk behind bars.
As put by Katrine Hildyard
Our government took firm action by introducing laws for mandatory electronic monitoring of those who seriously breach domestic violence intervention orders.
We know that the period after particular orders are made by the courts can present particular risks for those experiencing domestic, family and sexual violence. This crucial legislation is having an impact on that risk.
What we now see is our landmark legislative reforms improving the safety of domestic, family and sexual violence survivors.
We made a commitment to do all that we can to help tackle domestic, family and sexual violence, to hold perpetrators to account and to intervene and respond to the needs of survivors so they can recover and heal.
This is why our government established the Royal Commission into Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence. The findings report present our government and indeed our whole state with a generational opportunity to methodically, collaboratively and strategically drive long-term, impactful reform and we embrace it.
Breaches for Home Detention Orders