Surveillance-Based Compliance using Electronic Monitoring

Abstract

Electronic monitoring (EM) is a generic term for a number of remote surveillance technologies — radio frequency (RF) curfew checking at single locations, biometric voice verification at single or multiple locations, remote alcohol monitoring (home-based breathalysers or mobile sobriety bracelets which measure the presence of alcohol transdermally) and Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite tracking which monitors mobility and/or the perimeter of specified exclusion zones — which have been used to extend the range of spatial and temporal (and to some degree behavioural) regulations that can be imposed on offenders under supervision in the community. One or other of the technologies can be used at the pre-trial, sentence or post-release phase of the criminal justice process, sometimes with a view to achieving reductions in the use and cost of imprisonment. They can be applied to a wide range of offenders or suspects, as a stand-alone measure for low-risk people, or as a component of an intensive supervision programme for higher-risk people. Singly or in combination — EM curfews/home detention predominate — they have been used in approximately 40 countries around the world, beginning in the United States in the early 1980s, spreading to Canada, Australia and Europe, and most recently to Korea, Latin America and Saudi Arabia. They have been embedded in many different legal, administrative and discursive frameworks, reflecting different penal cultures and traditions, which have variously inflected EM as a new tough punishment, as an aid to rehabilitation or, more neutrally, as an additional layer of control which can serve either punitive or rehabilitative ends (Nellis et al. 2012).