How Far does Prison Punishment Extend? Re-entry Processes in the Digitalised Society

Abstract

This article questions how far punishment extends in a digitalised society, focusing on the complexities in relation to prison release and re-entry processes for people who have served a long prison sentence. Drawing on Gilles Deleuze’s concept of “societies of control” and Nils Christie’s concepts of “dense and loose societies,” the article discusses re-entry within the context of the Norwegian digitalised society. Through person-centred, multi-site fieldwork, the analysis identifies three types of complexities regarding re-entry processes. The first is how small and unforeseen events can reset the time of release from prison. The second is how digital gatekeepers in public welfare services create obstacles in the re-entry process. The third is how the possibility of online tracking and monitoring provides new forms of social control and pain after release, which creates an environment where a person’s criminal past affects his or her everyday life. This article challenges binary scientific understandings between the inside and the outside of prison and provides insights into the processes of how digital punishment and new forms of control occur in digitalised society. In this way, the article analytically contributes to the discussion of how the normative demand of being a free person after completing sentences in Norwegian criminal policy has been further complicated in a digitalised society.