Electronic tagging
The portable electronic tag was called behavior transmitter-reinforcer and could transmit data two-ways between a base station and a volunteer who simulated a young adult offender.
[1][2] The main base-station antenna was mounted on the roof of the Old Cambridge Baptist Church; the minister was the dean of the Harvard Divinity School.
The editor of a well-known U.S. government publication, Federal Probation, rejected a manuscript submitted by Ralph Kirkland Schwitzgebel, and included a letter which read in part: "I get the impression from your article that we are going to make automatons out of our parolees and that the parole officer of the future will be an expert in telemetry, sitting at his large computer, receiving calls day and night, and telling his parolees what to do in all situations and circumstances [...] Perhaps we should also be thinking about using electronic devices to rear our children.
"[4] Laurence Tribe in 1973 published information on the failed attempts by those involved in the project to find a commercial application for electronic tagging.
[12] The use of electronic monitoring in medical practice, especially as it relates to the tagging of the elderly and people with dementia, has generated controversy and media attention.
[14] Smartphones feature location-based apps to use information from global positioning system (GPS) networks to determine the phone's approximate location.
[17] School children in distress can hit a button on electronic devices in their uniforms or backpacks, immediately summoning a security agent to their location.
[citation needed] Public transport vehicles are outfitted with electronic monitoring devices that communicate with GPS systems, tracking their location.
The Quaker Council for European Affairs thinks that for electronic monitoring to be effective, it should serve to halt a developing criminal career.
[20] The National Audit Office in England and Wales commissioned a survey to examine the experiences of electronically monitored offenders and the members of their family.
The factors thought to influence the success or failure of community supervision, including type of electronic monitoring device used and criminal history, were measured.
[23] In the US in 1990, Ronald Corbett and Gary T. Marx criticized the use of electronic monitoring in a paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Criminology, Baltimore.
In the paper, which was later published in the Justice Quarterly, the authors described 'the new surveillance' technology as sharing some ethos with the information-gathering techniques found in maximum-security prisons, thereby allowing them to diffuse into the broader society.
The data revealed that 212 parole officers were saddled with the duty of responding to nearly 90,000 alerts and notification generated by electronic monitoring devices in the six months reviewed.
[25] Those subject to electronic monitoring may be given curfews as part of bail conditions, sentenced under the Criminal Justice Act 2003 in England and Wales (with separate legislation applying in Scotland).
[35] Typically, offenders are fitted with an electronic tag around their ankle which sends a regular signal to a receiver unit installed in their home.
[36] In 2012, the Policy Exchange think tank examined the use of electronic monitoring in England and Wales and made comparisons with technologies and models seen in other jurisdictions, particularly the United States.
The report, Future of Corrections, also criticized the cost of the service, highlighting an apparent differential between what the UK taxpayer was charged and what could be found in the United States.
[37] Subsequently, there were a number of scandals in relation to electronic monitoring in England and Wales, with a criminal investigation opened by the Serious Fraud Office into the activities of Serco and G4S.
[41] Electronic tagging has begun being used on psychiatric and dementia patients, prompting concern from mental health advocates who state that the practice is demeaning.
[42] In June 2022, the British Home Office announced a one-year pilot to track migrants who arrived on small boats on "dangerous and unnecessary routes" with GPS devices that will help "maintain regular contact" and more "effectively process their claims".
