1st Edition

Electronically Monitored Punishment International and Critical Perspectives

Edited By Mike Nellis, Kristel Beyens, Dan Kaminski Copyright 2013
    304 Pages 5 B/W Illustrations
    by Willan

    304 Pages 5 B/W Illustrations
    by Willan

    Electronic monitoring (EM) is a way of supervising offenders in the community whilst they are on bail, serving a community sentence or after release from prison. Various technologies can be used, including voice verification, GPS satellite tracking and – most commonly - the use of radio frequency to monitor house arrest. It originated in the USA in the 1980s and has spread to over 30 countries since then. This book explores the development of EM in a number of countries to give some indication of the diverse ways it has been utilized and of the complex politics which surrounds its use.

    A techno-utopian impulse underpins the origins of EM and has remained latent in its subsequent development elsewhere in the world, despite recognition that is it less capable of effecting penal transformations than its champions have hoped. This book devotes substantive chapters to the issues of privatisation, evaluation, offender perspectives and ethics. Whilst normatively more committed to the Swedish model, the book acknowledges that this may not represent the future of EM, whose untrammelled, commercially-driven development could have very alarming consequences for criminal justice.

    Both utopian and dystopian hopes have been invested in EM, but research on its impact is ambivalent and fragmented, and EM remains undertheorised, empirically and ethically. This book seeks to redress this by providing academics, policy audiences and practitioners with the intellectual resources to understand and address the challenges which EM poses.

    Introduction: making sense of electronic monitoring, Mike Nellis, Kristel Beyens and Dan KaminskiPart I, National experiences; 1. The limits of techno-utopianism: electronic monitoring in the United States of America, J. Robert Lilly and Mike Nellis,  2. The evolution of electronic monitoring in Canada: from corrections to sentencing and beyond,  Suzanne Wallace-Capretta and Julian Roberts,  3. 'Parallel tracks': probation and electronic monitoring in England and Wales and Scotland, George Mair and Mike Nellis,  4. Extending the electronic net in Australia and New Zealand: developments in electronic monitoring down-under, Russell G. Smith and Anita Gibbs,  5. From voice verification to GPS tracking: the development of electronic monitoring in South Korea, Younoh Cho and Byung Bae Kim,  6. High level support and high level control: an efficient Swedish model of electronic monitoring? Inka Wennerberg,  7. From tagging to tracking: beginnings and devleopment of electronic monitoring in France, Rene Levy,  8. Is the sky the limit? Eagerness for electronic monitoring in Belgium, Kristel Beyens and Dan Kaminski, 9. Bars in your head: electronic monitoring in the Netherlands, Rene Van Swaaningen and Jolande Uit Beijerse, Part II, Debates;  10. Surveillance, stigma and spatial constraint: the ethical challenges of electronic monitoring, Mike Nellis,  11. Commercial crime control and the development of electronically monitored punishment: a global perspective, Craig Paterson,  12. Inside views: offender and staff experiences of electronically monitored curfew orders,  Anthea Hucklesby,  13. Evaluative research on electronic monitoring, Marc Renzema.

    Biography

    Mike Nellis is Emeritus Professor of Criminal and Community Justice in the School of Law, University of Strathclyde, UK. He was formerly a social worker with young offenders, has a PhD from the Institute of Criminology in Cambridge, and was involved in the training of probation officers at the University of Birmingham. He has written widely on the fortunes of the probation service, alternatives to imprisonment and particularly the electronic monitoring of offenders.

    Kristel Beyens is Professor of Penology and Criminology at the Criminology Department of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium. She has published on prison overcrowding, sentencing and the implementation of prison sentences and sentences in the community, such as electronic monitoring and community service. She is a member of the editorial board of the European Journal of Probation and of the European Working Group on Community Sanctions.

    Dan Kaminski is Professor at the UCLouvain (University of Louvain-la-Neuve), Belgium, and President of the CRID&P (Interdisciplinary Research Centre on Deviance and Penality). He holds a PhD in Criminology and has published on managerialism, penal treatment of drug use, prisoners' rights, alternatives to prison and electronic monitoring.

    "The book provides accounts of electronic monitoring from an impressive variety of international perspectives. These include accounts from several European countries, as well as countries in North America and Australasia… It is anticipated that this collection provides a more detailed understanding upon which further research can be built."Ella Holdsworth, The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice Vol 53 No 2. May 2014

    "This book is an outstanding contribution to the growing body of work on electronic monitoring. In terms of both the themes addressed and the geographic reach, it is an ambitious undertaking, which is impressively realised."Dr. Jamie Bennett, Prison Service Journal

    "This is a fine and important book that definitely fills a gap and is to be commended to anyone interested in punishment and control." - Prof. Tom Daems, Leuven Institute of Criminology, British Journal of Criminology