Electronic monitoring in the United States
[2] The federal government, the District of Columbia and all 50 states employ electronic devices to track and constrain the movements of pretrial defendants and convicts on probation or parole.
[8] In response to the shift from brick and mortar carceral institutions to what law enforcement termed "community control" under electronic monitoring, an oppositional movement pushed back, describing a widening net of "mass incarceration to mass surveillance" that threatened privacy and individual freedom while reinforcing social stratification, disrupting an individual's connections to the community and resulting in a subgroup of second-class citizens in the U.S., where African Americans are imprisoned at nearly six times the rate of white people.
[9][10][11][12][13] Michelle Alexander, author and civil rights advocate, refers to electronic ankle monitoring practices as the "Newest Jim Crow," increasingly segregating black people under bail reform laws that "look good on paper" but are based on a presumption of guilt and replace bail with shackles as pre-trial detainees consent to electronic monitoring in order to be released from jail.
of "community control" argue[15] electronic monitoring is humane—sometimes allowing pretrial detainees, who have not been convicted yet but make up most of the local jail population,[16] as well as offenders on probation and parole, an opportunity to live at home with their families, enjoying freedom to move from one room to the next rather than confined in a 1.8×2.4 m cell.
[15] Radio frequency (RF) ankle monitors are often used for curfew compliance with juveniles or individuals considered low risk for criminal behavior.
[20] The ankle device runs on batteries to be charged once or twice a day and utilizes commercial cellular networks to transmit data points[21] and location information anywhere in the world.
[28] For adults under house arrest or other geographical restrictions, they may be prohibited from going grocery shopping, attending a child's school event, going to a beauty salon or washing clothes at a laundromat.
A male going only by the name of Christopher told the Marshall Project, a non-profit news service focused on criminal justice, that he had to wear an ankle monitor from the time he was 13, until he was 18, after having committed violations of his probation.
[33]Proponents of using smartphones to track and constrain an individual through fingerprints, facial recognition and voice verification tout the cell phone's capability to integrate several features: Internet access; touchscreen interface; camera and video recording; location mapping and other applications.
[37] One SCRAM vendor advertises a "wireless, portable breath alcohol device with automated facial recognition and GPS with every single test.
Proponents of the use of electronic monitors to control individuals outside of carceral institutions argue the devices:[43] Opponents of the use of technology to control individuals outside of carceral institutions argue the devices:[51] According to a 2021 study in the Review of Economics and Statistics, which used the quasi-random assignment of judges in trials as a method to gauge causal inferences, electronic monitoring was far more effective in reducing recidivism than prisons.
[65] Researcher Beirness and Marques (2004) summarized evaluations of the effectiveness of AUD programs for those arrested for driving under the influence in the United States and Canada.
In 2018, a year that saw 400,000 migrants cycle through detention centers, ICE canceled the Family Case Management program, citing expense and failure to deport enough asylum seekers.
In April 2020, the inmate population at ICE detention centers dropped from a daily average of 50,000[73] to 32,300 people, the lowest number of detainees during the Trump administration.
resident arrested for driving under the influence, led him to file a class action lawsuit against the county and its private electronic monitoring contractor.
Securus, the country's largest prison telephone service, sold for $1.5 billion in 2017 to Platinum Equity, operates several electronic monitoring companies.
[80] 1960s: Harvard University conducts a volunteer experiment to evaluate the effectiveness of GPS tracking devices to encourage "pro-social non-criminal" behavior among juveniles.
To evaluate the rehabilitative efficacy of wearing a monitoring device on the wearer's belt, messages were relayed to the subject's electronic tag as positive reinforcement when an acting young offender arrived on time to a specified place—school, workplace, drug treatment center.
Reinforcement, designed to improve the odds of rehabilitation, came in the form of rewards, such as free haircuts, slices of pizza and tickets to concerts — all to motivate the "offenders" to comply with expected norms of behavior.
"[83] In his defense, Robert Gable, one of the designers of the experiment, writes, "... the original goal of electronic monitoring was not to punish offenders but to provide a means of rewarding prosocial, noncriminal behavior.
Love pitches EM to technology companies, leading to the production of the first transmitter unit, the size of a cigarette package, to be attached to an ankle.
[88] Judge Burt Cosgrove of Metropolitan Court, sentenced for house arrest an offender, who is Mr. Romero, a 23 year old truck driver in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA.
He was one of five criminal defendants here who served sentences of court supervision by means of an experimental ‘electronic monitoring anklet' alternate to imprisonment for minor offense or misdemeanor.
[93] Michigan and Massachusetts use EM to track domestic abusers, and at least two companies introduce systems allowing the victim's location to constitute a mobile exclusion zone off limits to offenders.
[95] 2012: U.S. Supreme Court rules in United States v. Jones, law enforcement must obtain a probable-cause warrant to place a GPS tracker on a car.
