"Restraining Orders Are Not Enough"... Germany to Require Electronic Ankle Bracelets for Domestic Violence Offenders

17.8% Increase in Domestic Violence Victims in Germany Over Four Years
Electronic Monitoring Adopted in Spain, France, and Other Countries
"Rapid Police Intervention and Support for Victims’ Recovery"

Germany has decided to require offenders of domestic violence to wear electronic ankle bracelets equipped with location tracking.

Photo to aid article understanding. Pixabay

According to Yonhap News Agency, citing Germany’s ZDF broadcaster on May 8 (local time), “The German Bundestag has passed an amendment to the Violence Protection Act, which allows courts to order offenders of domestic violence to wear electronic monitoring bracelets.” If an offender wearing an ankle bracelet violates a restraining order, an alert will be sent not only to the authorities but also to the victim through a separate receiving device. The court can mandate the wearing of the ankle bracelet for six months, with possible extensions in three-month increments.

The expansion of electronic monitoring from offenses such as murder, sexual assault, and terrorism to now include domestic violence is due to the increasing number of victims and the fact that restraining orders alone have proven insufficient as a preventive measure. In 2024, the number of domestic violence victims reported to the police reached 266,000, a 17.8% increase from four years prior. Notably, in January of last year, a man named Domenique S in Germany attacked and killed his former partner with an axe and other weapons, despite being under a court order to stay at least 50 meters away from her. This case once again demonstrated that restraining orders alone are often inadequate to prevent further harm.

Spain was the first country in Europe to introduce this system. Since 2009, electronic ankle bracelets have been used for domestic violence offenders, and since the introduction of the system, there have been no recorded cases of victims dying from domestic violence while the offender was under electronic monitoring. France implemented a similar system in 2021, linking the offender’s bracelet to a receiving device carried by the victim. Switzerland also enacted legislation in the same year to monitor domestic violence offenders with Global Positioning System (GPS) devices. In Belgium, a new type of electronic bracelet that alerts the victim was introduced in 2024.

Florian Rebmann, a criminologist at the University of Tuebingen’s Institute of Criminology in Germany, commented, “With this measure, the police will be able to intervene promptly during the course of an incident.” He added, “We surveyed protected individuals in Spain and the United States about their experiences with this measure, and many reported a significant decrease in daily stress. It clearly helps them regain their everyday lives, such as being able to go about their activities without fear.”

However, since the German Federal Constitutional Court has previously ruled that electronic location tracking could constitute an infringement of fundamental rights, it is likely that this measure will be applied only to high-risk cases. Rebmann further noted, “There are simply too many domestic violence offenders in reality for all of them to be fitted with ankle bracelets.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.