Normally, I would wear it like that.
I don't really want everyone to see it, do I?
I'd rather be a prisoner in my own home, around my own possessions,
than a prisoner in a HMP.
Every year, up to 11,000 offenders are ordered to wear electronic tags.
Around 500 of those are in Nottingham.
This needs to come off.
I've been in the building from seven o'clock
and they're trying to tell me I breached.
It's an alternative to prison and the objective
is to reduce reoffending.
I'm ready to be positive,
so the world just needs to let me get on now.
Fucking had enough of it.
It's a controversial approach.
Tag increases are planned, but there's still no proof it works.
Sam is fresh out of prison.
He's been approved for early release on tag,
midway through a 45 month sentence.
The first thing I did is, I went to a petrol station
and ate some different food.
Which wasn't all that great cos it was petrol station food,
but it was fucking better than prison food, I'll tell you that.
You enjoying it? Yeah, massively, man.
Fucking beautiful, isn't it? It's not jail.
Sam is staying with his mum and sister in Nottingham.
Somewhere he's never lived before.
You can't have tag 20 where you've been arrested to, for one thing.
This is where I've moved up to, round here.
It's a safe environment for me. And I don't want to get back on,
I don't want to go back to drugs I don't want to go back to alcohol.
I want to try to do clean living.
I want to try and get on the right path, so...
What did you go down for? I broke a guy's jaw and ankle.
It was an emotional day, really. He caught me at a very bad time.
And I just stuck one in his jaw.
He folded, his ankle snapped.
He's twisted, he's hit a pebbledash wall, his jaw broke,
his cheekbone, I think, he's got a...
Yeah, it wasn't good, man. It really weren't good.
Did you feel bad?
Well, the next day, it sort of hit home.
Yeah. Not good, man.
Not good, at all.
Do you lot, you sell Viagra, don't you?
I've got a chick coming to see me next week and it's been a while.
You can only buy it if you've got health issues.
None of them expected me to ask them that, though.
They were all like, "Eh? You want Viagra?
"You can't buy Viagra."
Wicked. So, you didn't get any? No.
That's all right, it's no bother. Not as if I need it,
it would just have been fun, wouldn't it?
Tag wearers must have an approved address.
Those without family or friends rely on hostels to take them in.
Naskam is one of the few in Nottingham to allow tags.
This box will monitor the perimeter of the building,
um, linked to the tag on the offender's feet.
If the offender breached the perimeter,
this box will send a signal to the tagging team, to inform them
that there has been a breach.
So, this is quite a sensitive box, you know.
And if you breach it even by a metre, you know, it will alert
the tagging team. So, it's quite important
that they don't breach those perimeters.
Christian must wear a tag while on bail for a burglary charge.
He's a regular face at the hostel.
You look really good, man.
Good to see you, Mr Mustapha.
Oh, please, man.
I'm pleased to see you, pleased, man.
Proud of you. Son? Yeah.
Are you implying you've fucked my mum?
This is the boudoir.
The hum... The humble abode.
So, like, once a week, it'll always look like this.
I've got OCD. It's not OCD with cleaning, it's OCD when I know
I've got to do something
and it'll stay in my head until I've done it. So...
..cos I can't lie down, I've got to sort my clothes out.
Hm, mindfulness.
This is what helps me stay off drugs.
Sit here and read this and envision your mind as a calm lake.
I think of the drugs and I think of what would happen if I continue
to, where I'll be in a week, then a month, then a year.
And it always ends up in prison, so...
Yeah, that's when I've got to go to court, on the second of October.
And that I've been put on tag.
You will stay indoors in your home address between 8pm
and 8am, daily.
Yeah. So, it's the starting point.
So, in a year I won't be here.
I can tell you that much, I won't be here.
Um...I'll have my own accommodation. Uh...
..possibly employment.
Christian isn't the only tag user at Naskam.
24-year-old Reece is due in court tomorrow.
I'm holding a picture of my son or daughter, which, obviously,
is just, only, at the minute, a tiny, little pea.
I actually broke down crying as soon as I seen the little thing
on the ultrasound scan.
I don't want it to be brought up in my background,
my background history.
Because I don't want it to be turning out like me.
Ending up on drugs and getting into crime.
So, hopefully, in the next four or five months, maybe six,
I could be in a better place.
And...
..I'll have everything to support my child.
BEEPING
My tag box is going off, my tag box, my tag box.
Your tag box is going off? Yeah.
My tag box has just gone off, I'm in the building.
It's never went off in the living room.
All right, cheers, mate. Thank you.
All right, bye-bye.
I've been out for seven minutes?
I'm sure I've been sitting in the living room with you.
This is the point where you hate being on tag, because you get stupid
phone calls saying you're breaching your tag.
I've been in the building from seven o'clock
and they're trying to tell me I've breached.
This needs to come off.
Hopefully, tomorrow things go to plan and I'll be off it
and I don't need to stick to it.
By the way, that's the one that's pregnant,
the one that's having a baby.
That's your son?
Yeah, that's my little boy, he's now three.
Reece was 20 when he had his first child with a different partner.
If it comes out a boy, I feel sorry for my partner,
because she's just going to get terrorised.
It's going to be a boy.
You don't know what it's going to be. It's going to be a boy.
You don't know what it's going to be. It's a he-she, there you go.
Yes, it is because it's not even got a willy yet.
It ain't even got a vagina yet. It's not even a he-she, it's a pea.
It's a little small hole, look at the picture.
It's not going to be the size of a pea! Yes, it is. It's tiny.
Stop. Leave it, man.
Sam is now one week into his tag sentence.
I miss my friends and that, man. I miss being at home.
I don't know anyone, at all.
Not one single person do I know, in Nottingham.
So, it's like...
..it's just, actually it's more alone than in prison, really.
You know, my mum is at work, my sister's away all the time.
She works all the time, so it's just, I am literally just on my own
with my dog, every single day.
Like...
..yeah.
Come on, get your ball. Come on.
We're locked in now.
That is a tag box, right there.
It just does nothing, at all.
It hasn't rang once.
It's pointless, really.
Obviously, you can't touch it,
cos it's got a security seal on it, so...
Talk me through what happens. What, when they come first day?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Basically, you have to walk around the house,
so you have to walk here, walk here.
You've to go right round there, go all the way around the house.
Yeah, to the corner of every single room.
The tag box picks you up, so it knows you haven't gone out
and this, that and the other.
So the furthest I can go, is to the porch, basically.
I'm not allowed out in the garden after seven o'clock, nothing.
It's just rubbish.
It is what it is, man. In for the night.
So, what are you going to do?
Watch Guardians of the Galaxy 2.
I reckon they probably know where you are at all times with these.
They say it's not a GPS thing, but I'm guessing it must,
there must be, like, a control centre somewhere and I'm probably,
like, a little red light on the wall or something.
And I'll probably start flashing if I go out.
This is where I live, man.
This is my room.
That's me on the floor.
The bed's fucked my back up.
I've been used to, the prison mattresses are rock hard.
They're, like, this solid bit of foam.
These are foam mattresses, but they, like...
..like, it's just, it's too soft, it's horrible.
Just like, it's... Look how much I'm sinking in, man.
I can't deal with it, so I'm on the floor.
Don't worry about that, I'll move it out of the way.
Was that...? That's a hammer.
That is in case anyone comes in this house.
At least, I know I've got it up here.
My mum and my sister, if you think I'm ever letting anyone touch them,
I'll go down and smash them right up.
Is that seriously?
That's why it's there.
In case anyone comes in the house,
just I feel safer with that being here.
Where I've been to jail, I know what people are like.
See people, there are savage people in this world.
At least I know if I turn up downstairs with that,
someone might go, "All right, listen, mate, I'm going to leave."
And if they don't they're getting clubbed with that round the head, aren't they? Simple.
Come in my house, man, that's what's happening.
But... Seems like quite a nice neighbourhood.
I know, man. I don't, maybe it's just because I've been in there
and it's just, it's just shown me what people can be like.
In my head, that there could be the difference between my mum and sister
being OK and my mum and sister not being OK.
I know I'd rather have it.
It's not cos I'm a nasty person,
just, I just feel safer with that here.
You're going to give me a bath, later.
Unlike Sam, Christian is from Nottingham
and has plenty of friends locally.
So, you're on bail, but also on tag.
On bail, tag and licence.
So, does that mean that you've got a trial coming up?
Yeah, on the second of August.
Can you just tell me about that?
I've just got to go and stand there and tell him that I didn't do it,
basically.
Uh... Do what?
What?
I don't know really what else I can say.
I've just got to tell them about the evidence
and explain how my fingerprints came to be there
and hopefully walk out.
And until then, you're on tag? Yeah.
What happens if they find you guilty?
Prison, probably.
But cos I've complied with tag and everything, uh...
..might just give me community order, but who knows?
Who knows? It's...again...
..you can overthink everything, can't you?
And think "what ifs" and all that.
But you don't want to go back to prison?
Oh, yeah. I can't wait.
Of course I don't want to go back to prison!
I thought that was what this was all about.
I definitely don't want to go back to prison.
Yo!
My main man.
Mate, I'm a celebrity, bro.
Christian has a few hours before his curfew
and heads to the pub for a drink.
It's Reece, come in.
Reese is back from his court hearing.
You all right?
They're keeping me on tag for another four weeks. OK.
And then I'm off tag.
My tag time's changed.
Six till eight. Six till eight now.
So, obviously, I'm allowed out till eight o'clock.
Well... No, it's not six till eight, it's eight. Eight till six.
Eight to six in the morning. Yeah.
DOORBELL RINGS
Wow. That's getting serious.
No, it's not serious. It's just, you know.
Right, I'll come back in, like, whenever.
So, another four weeks on tag, which I think is a good thing.
Give him some boundaries to stick to, for a little while longer.
He's very young and to be going round the system at this point,
it could take him through his whole life like that, so, this is a chance
for him to jump off and now it's up to him what he does with that.
I got a scan of the baby, you know.
Yeah, actually, Mum, it's fuck, oh, wow.
Like...
..I don't want to go back into doing stupid shit like crime.
You know what? I'm better than that.
ON THE PHONE: Of course you are.
All right, speak to you in a bit, Mum. Love you, bye.
Bye-bye. Bye-bye.
What's your relationship with your mum like?
Mm...it's not great and it's not on, like, good terms.
But... Why, what's, what's she done wrong?
That's something I don't really want to get into.
Like, cos obviously it just upsets me.
Reece wants his family life to be very different.
I want to be with Leesha.
I just want to settle down and just live a happy life
and get myself a job and just be happier,
instead of committing a crime,
going back to jail for months and months, not seeing my kids.
Cos that's what hurt me the most and, like, killed me.
On the other side of Nottingham, Sam's curfew is about to start.
So, that's it now. That's in for the night.
Nothing to do.
I mean, I can go and sit on the porch if I want to.
But it's not even, it's not even that, is it? It's just dead.
I was going to go to the flipping Co-op and get some crisps and that.
I'll have to ask my mum and I'll have to give her the money, when she gets here.
What would happen if you left the house during curfew
with that tag on and went to buy some crisps?
I don't know, shall we find out?
I'm guessing that thing would start ringing.
HE SIGHS
I've got five minutes yet.
I'm going to go outside and have a bit of fresh air for five minutes.
Such a nice evening, as well.
Bollocks, innit?
I'm going to be stuck indoors in that.
My dog's got more freedom than me.
Fuck it.
In for the night.
Christian's trip to the pub has taken an unexpected turn.
May have just taken someone's car.
Christian has driven a car from outside the pub,
after being asked to move it a few blocks away by a friend.
Where did you take it to?
I'm not going to, I'm not going to say that just in...
..you know what I mean? Then I could be at risk.
But it didn't seem, it didn't seem right?
Nah, nah.
If he stole it, then technically he's the one who's done it.
I'm just...
..like an accessory. You know what I mean?
So, so why did you take it?
I don't really know, it was more impulse, more spur of the moment.
Fuck.
Yeah, I want to go inside. I'm a bit paranoid about being out now.
I get myself into trouble and I'm always regretting it after.
How many times have you been in prison?
17.
That's from the age of 16.
Yeah, 22.
That's not counting the last three times I've been.
Why doesn't my brain work in the same way that everyone else's does?
Why do I still keep making the same mistakes now,
that I was making when I was 14?
Everyone says, "It's all down to yourself."
But, like I said, I'm not going to sit here and blame...
..ADHD, schizophrenia, stuff like that.
It's just...
..there's part of my brain that's different.
It's not part of me that I like, in truth,
cos sometimes they were right
and good things happen and funny things happen.
Other times, dangerous things happen, things that injure me
or harm me, or end up hurting the people that I love
or care about.
Or I end up in these places or in prison.
I don't know, I think I'm a bit of a child still inside.
Can't help myself, but keep fucking up for some reason.
Deep down, I'm pissed right off that I've got to work
in a pork pie factory doing 12 hour shifts.
It's a load of shit.
That's how I feel.
Who are you going to meet?
The mother of my child.
But you know if someone blows, like, one kiss to you,
it's a friendly thing, two kisses, three kisses, all that crap.
Yeah, well, she's still sending me two kisses, so...
Aw, it's taking the piss, man.
When the police came, they looked really pissed off,
cos they've got this information
about Reece wanting to strangle the girlfriend.