A 77-year-old activist is facing recall to prison because her wrists are too small for an electronic tag.

Gaie Delap, from Bristol, was sent to prison in August, along with four co-defendants, for her part in a campaign of disruptive protests on the M25 in November 2022.

Several months after she was jailed for the Just Stop Oil protests, she was let out after being told she qualified to serve the rest of her sentence under a home detention curfew.

But the company contracted to fit the tag to Delap was unable to attach one to her ankle because of a health condition, and there are no devices available small enough to fit wrists her size.

Now there is a warrant for her arrest after the company contacted the prison authorities to tell them she “could not be monitored”.

  • Krauerking@lemy.lol
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    4 days ago

    Man Just Stop Oil got exactly the headline they wanted.
    The only way it could be better is if it read:

    77 year old frail woman and friends to be sent to prison for being scared of all future generations dying from climate change

    • NOPper@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      This is total bullshit of course, but fyi those straps have wires run through them to alarm on tampering, it’s not like a wristwatch.

      Source: was a total nerd in high school and had an extremely cute friend ask me if it was possible to circumvent…as an engineering challenge of course.

      • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        5 days ago

        That’s a fair point! But I can’t imagine that these things are impossible to take apart, if only for the sake of maintenance. Like, I wouldn’t expect them to do it on site, but somewhere up the line someone has to be capable of modifying it to fit.

      • Fuck spez@sh.itjust.works
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        5 days ago

        Wouldn’t the wires just run around the circumference to prevent cutting the thing off? I’ve never seen one up close but I’d imagine they would have to if it’s anything like a wristwatch band or a miniature belt.

        • Krauerking@lemy.lol
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          4 days ago

          It’s not quite like that. This is a specialized device to let criminals serve jail sentences at home and needs to be pretty specialized and tamper proof. They also collect constant biometrics and more from multiple spots and are a bit black box to keep it from being common knowledge how to adjust or hack them.

          This is silly but it’s not the device that’s making it silly and trying to figure it out how to get it on her instead of why she needs it is the issue.

  • rekabis@lemmy.ca
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    4 days ago

    This is a disproportionate crackdown on climate protesters. It’s clear that Gaie poses no threat to her fellow citizens.”

    Except she is a threat to the Parasite Class and a potential disruption to their obscene profit margins. Ergo, she is a top concern for law enforcement.

    Remember - the police do not protect people. The protect property.

  • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    I heard during the pandemic there was a shortage of ankle monitors, so you were required to keep your phone on you and they’d randomly video call you a couple times a day to verify you were at home.

      • kn33@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        I’m thinking low tech. First day: “I’m going to visit your home”. Follow up calls: “Show me around the house”

      • u/lukmly013 💾 (lemmy.sdf.org)@lemmy.sdf.org
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        5 days ago

        Triangulation maybe?

        Though you could still have a “phone” at home, some device that would act like a phone on the network and be at home and forward all calls over the network to some external device, basically just being a proxy.

        Though it could perhaps be detected because of some extra delay and compression.

      • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        Video call so they can see your surroundings and I assume they have reference photos that it’s your home.

      • j4k3@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        Emergency services can triangulate location regardless of device and ROM using only the active modem. I’m sure gov can do the same.

        I’ve been in situations on a bike where I have no clue where the closest cross streets are and they could pinpoint my location when I called from a dedicated bike trail. This despite running a custom ROM that is minimal, prepaid, running proxy, etc.

        • ✺roguetrick✺@lemmy.world
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          4 days ago

          The government can but nobody’s giving these slimy monitoring contractors access to their systems, and that’s who house arrest folks generally have to pay.

  • tehWrapper@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    Don’t they norm have ankle monitors? Even if your ankle is small your food should be big enough to stop it from coming off?

    • grysbok@lemmy.sdf.org
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      4 days ago

      Depends. My feet are too small to keep me secure in my partner’s inversion table, which tightens around the ankles. So, if the ankle monitor is similarly unable to go small enough, I’d expect a similar problem.

      On the other hand, I’ve worn ankle bracelets just fine. But an ankle monitor might be less flexible/able to tighten into the curves of the ankle.