Carceral surveillance: Data flows within and beyond prison walls

Abstract

In this article, we will analyse contemporary carceral surveillance dynamics, namely the increasing storage and exchange of prisoners’ biometric data. Drawing on qualitative research conducted in prisons, policing and security settings, we will explore how prisoners’ bodies are reduced to information and broken up into data flows. These flows move within and beyond prison walls, impacting how prisoner's data is shared (in)formally with other criminal justice actors (e.g. police forces). Such interstitial connections allow us to better explore the permeability and porosity of prison boundaries. Overall, we argue that prisoners’ data doubles are not spatially or physically restricted within cells and walls, as they circulate and are virtually managed at a distance. We urge to revisit and rethink the use of panoptic conceptual models when researching carceral spaces, its technological infrastructures and surveillance dynamics.