Electronic bracelet monitoring system becomes operational in Bucharest and three counties
The monitoring system with electronic bracelets became operational in Bucharest and the counties of Iasi, Mures, and Vrancea on October 1. Here, people who are subject to police or court protection orders will be monitored with electronic bracelets.
This is the first stage of a pilot project meant to be implemented in three stages.
"By 2025 the entire electronic monitoring information system will be operational," internal affairs minister Lucian Bode said on Thursday, October 6, quoted by News.ro.
According to him, there are 964 monitoring kits and nine have been installed so far.
"In the last 24 hours, two devices have been fitted. There was also an incident, the police officers who arrived at the scene found that the person had removed the bracelet. He was taken to police headquarters, where investigations are underway for the offense of destruction. From the latest data we understand that in this situation the individual will be detained for 24 hours and will be presented to the court with legal proposals. (...) Logically, the person guilty of destruction should pay. We will see what the court orders," minister Bode said.
A man in Bucharest who was the first to be fitted with an electronic bracelet connected to the electronic monitoring information system for perpetrators of domestic violence tried to get rid of it and ran away from home, but was soon caught by the police.
"This morning (October 6), at around 3:30 am, police officers from the 19th Police Station were notified via the 112 system that an alert had been received at an address in District 5 regarding the destruction of a monitoring bracelet. Police officers established that the man, who had been fitted with the monitoring bracelet earlier this month, had used a sharp object to cut the tracking device, but failed to destroy it. The Public Prosecutor's Office was contacted and the man was subsequently detained for violation of the Provisional Protection Order and destruction of property," said the Bucharest Police, quoted by Agerpres.
He is now at risk of being remanded in custody for failing to comply with supervision measures. The investigations are being continued by the 19th Police Section, under the supervision of the Public Prosecutor's Office of the District 5 Court.
The electronic surveillance system consists of a kit that includes a bracelet that is attached to the aggressor’s ankle or, in cases determined by law, to the aggressor's wrist, and a mobile phone handed to the aggressor, which has a tracking system installed and which the aggressor is obliged to carry on his person at all times, or else an alarm is triggered. A second phone is given to the person being protected, who will also be required to have it on them, explains HotNews.ro.
There are also phone kits that cover multiple protected victims, in the event of a violent occurrence that affects more than one person.
The kit will emit approach alerts, unauthorized leaving alerts, unauthorized exceeding a set perimeter (inclusion zone) alerts, unauthorized entering a set perimeter (exclusion zone) alerts, critical battery level alerts, and more.
The electronic bracelet contains safety features that prevent the perpetrator from removing it.
How the monitoring system works
According to the police, monitoring is carried out automatically, without human intervention, systematically and exclusively on the territory of Romania, on electronic devices, based on their identifier and in relation to certain rules. The identity of the monitored person and of the protected person(s) wearing the electronic devices is known only to the monitoring body creating the alert.
Clear roles, rules, and procedures for monitoring, alerting and intervention are established for electronic monitoring, through information sharing, so that the data of the wearers of the surveillance devices are not known during monitoring, but only the identifiers (IDs) of these devices, by eliminating human intervention where possible and replacing it with objective rules.
Once the alert has been entered into the system, the surveillance authority will not have access to the location data of the wearer of the electronic device.
Only to the extent that an alert is generated (notifying the violation of an established rule) will it be possible to associate the identifier of the device with the personal data existing in the monitoring case, by automatically retrieving them when the alert is generated and transmitting them, together with other intervention data, to the S.I.M.E. and 112 dispatches and thus to the nearest law enforcement agency for intervention.
According to the Romanian Police, the use of these systems does not equate to the protection of the physical integrity of the protected persons, but allows the adoption of measures to prevent and counteract possible physical contact between the victim of domestic violence and the aggressor, and if needed, to impose the measures of house arrest and remote surveillance.
(Photo source: Iuri Gagarin | Dreamstime.com)
