Quebec to Introduce Tracking Bracelets in Attempt to Reduce Intimate Partner Violence – Montreal | The Canadian News

Quebec Public Safety Minister Geneviève Guilbault announced Wednesday the gradual introduction of electronic tracking bracelets as part of the province’s plan to reduce violent crimes related to spousal violence.

Guilbault called the move a “historic step” and noted that only six countries in the world are using the technology.

Bracelets work through geolocation and are generally made up of two parts: the bracelet is worn by the offender while the victim wears a small device.
An alert is sent to the police if the offender approaches his victim, making it possible, when necessary, for officers to intervene quickly, giving victims a greater sense of security.

It is also believed that the bracelets could lead to better compliance with the conditions imposed on offenders.

“Electronic tracking bracelets can save lives,” said Christine Giroux, author and survivor of spousal violence. “It is a great relief to think that many victims of domestic violence will now be able to feel safe and have peace of mind.”

Guilbault said the first tracking devices will be deployed in spring 2022, between defendants on trial in the Quebec City courthouse and inmates at the Quebec City Detention Center, as part of a “blueprint”.

Trend stories

• 

  8 people taken to hospital after a pedestrian collision in London, Ontario.

• 

  London Ontario. Accident: an 8-year-old girl dies, members of the Guides of Canada among the pedestrians run over

Use of the trackers will be expanded to various regions in the fall of 2022, including the Capitale-Nationale and Chaudière-Appalaches regions, as well as Joliette and Salaberry-de-Valleyfield.

In the long term, the goal is to have around 500 bracelets to wear throughout the province.

The cost of the project is estimated at $ 41 million over five years.

The initiative is one of many implemented last year as the province faces a dramatic increase in femicides.

At least 17 women in the province have been killed as a result of intimate partner violence.

Montreal police refuse to confirm that the case of a woman whose body was found with a man in an apartment on Fairmont Avenue in Montreal in early November was a femicide. That would bring the femicide count to 18.

“Attacks on women and femicides have shaken us in recent months,” Guilbault said. “We have the power and the duty to reject this violence, collectively and individually.”

The tracking devices were a key recommendation in a coroner’s report on the death of Marylene Levesque, who was killed in a Quebec City hotel room in January 2020 by a convicted murderer on parole.