Home Office Ministers are desperate to break the cycle of deprivation caused by the systematic use of jail sentences, and want the curfews to be used instead.
This would expand greatly the existing tagging system, used until now only for 'early release' prisoners and a small number of criminals currently given curfews.
Ministers are thought to have been impressed by Scandinavian tagging projects, whose success of curfews has led to the closure of prisons.
Prisons Minister Lord Williams wants the courts to be encouraged to tag minor criminal, and lock up only the most violent offenders.
A spokesman for Premier Monitoring Services, which has provided tags for around 2,000 offenders in London and the Midlands, said: 'There is always room for expansion in this kind of business. We would rise to any challenge and I'm sure we would cope.'
But prison reform and probation groups believe it is too early to judge the success of tagging, which was not introduced nationally until earlier this year.
Official figures from April show that fewer than a third of prisoners eligible for home detention have been released. The Home Office had expected 70 per cent. The discrepancy is being blamed largely on the caution of governors.
Just over 3,000 prisoners have been tagged. Officials had hoped for 30,000 over the first year of the scheme.
The National Association of Prison Officers is concerned that the system is not designed for larger numbers, and it claims to have had reports that it is already breaking down. Spokesman Harry Fletcher said: 'Ministers are very gung-ho about this, but they have not thought it through. New Labour is impressed by new technology, but it is not a solution.'
Fletcher said the reported problems included:
All the tags intended to monitor prisoners released from Chelmsford prison have been recalled due to technical faults.
A South East England chicken farmer convicted of fraud was though to have violated his curfew when his tag didn't work in one of his hen sheds.
Several released prisoners found their tags didn't work in some rooms at the top of their houses.
A man thought to have repeatedly violated his curfew found he was accidentally short-circuiting his tag when he rolled over on to it in bed.
One criminal in hospital after a seizure discovered that officials did not know he had left home.
The Howard League for Prison Reform believes an expansion of tagging would fail.
Its director, Frances Crook, said: 'If you invent new gimmicks they tend to be used as well as, rather than instead of, existing punishments. Community penalties should be voluntary and constructive. Tagging is merely restrictive.'
