Electronic monitoring or electronic incarceration (e-carceration) is state use of digital technology to monitor, track and constrain an individual's movements outside of a prison, jail or detention center. Common examples of electronic monitoring of individuals under pre-trial or immigrant detention, house arrest, on probation or parole include: GPS wrist and ankle monitors, cellphones with biometric security systems, ignition interlock devices and automated probation check-in centers or kiosks.
The use of electronic monitoring has increased considerably in recent years in the United States.
Overview
According to a survey distributed by The Pew Charitable Trusts in December 2015, "the number of accused and convicted criminal offenders in the United States who are supervised with ankle monitors and other GPS-system electronic tracking devices rose nearly 140 percent over 10 years," resulting in more than 125,000 people under electronic supervision in 2015, an increase from 53,000 in 2005.
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. GPS monitoring devices are most commonly used by law enforcement in Florida, Texas, California, Massachusetts, and Michigan. In 2020, approximately 4.5 million adults, twice the inmate population, were on probation or parole in what is commonly referred to as "community supervision," although only two percent were electronically supervised as recently as 2015.
Decarceration to e-carceration
Shift in state budget priorities
In the aftermath of decades-long tough on crime legislation that increased the US inmate population from 200,000 in 1973 to over two million in 2009, financially strapped states and cities turned to technology—wrist and ankle monitors—to reduce inmate populations as courts mandated inmate reductions in overcrowded prisons, and states realigned their budgets to address other priorities in education, housing and infrastructure.
Community control versus prison outsourcing
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. 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. "Entire communities could 'become trapped in digital prisons that keep them locked out of neighborhoods where jobs and opportunity can be found'", says Alexander, who advocates re-integration of individuals into the community via quality schools, jobs, drug treatment and mental health services as opposed to "high-tech management and control."
On the other hand, advocates of "community control" argue electronic monitoring is humane—sometimes allowing pretrial detainees, who have not been convicted yet but make up most of the local jail population, 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. Electronic monitoring, they argue, saves cash-poor states valuable resources while benefitting offenders who can become productive. Says Ann Toyer of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections, "We get them back into the community where they can work, they pay taxes, they have access to community services ... If we can get them back into the community, get them working, they can pay for those services." In addition, proponents of electronic monitoring say the technology can be used to incapacitate violent criminals and reduce recidivism, though studies on the use of electronic monitors to reduce repeat offenses have produced mixed results.
EM as a predictive tool Researchers anticipate electronic monitoring will be used to predict criminal behavior through software that tracks offenders' movements in a 24-hour period, tracing patterns to detect suspicious movements such as a convicted burglar driving around a neighbourhood at the same time every day.
Types of electronic monitors
Ankle and wrist monitors Radio frequency (RF) ankle monitors are often used for curfew compliance with juveniles or individuals considered low risk for criminal behavior. In addition to wearing an ankle monitor, the individual sets up a separate monitoring unit at home. The unit can be programmed to detect an ankle or wrist monitor within a short range of 50 to 150 feet in order to send a message to a staffed monitoring station. The supervising officer can establish a person's schedule, requiring the individual to follow a daily routine, and ensuring that alerts are sent when the individual veers from the schedule or tampers with the ankle monitor.
Higher risk offenders, such as sex offenders and domestic abusers, are more likely to wear a water and impact-resistant electronic monitoring (EM) device using Global Positioning System (GPS) for minute by minute tracking purposes. The ankle device runs on batteries to be charged once or twice a day and utilizes commercial cellular networks to transmit data points and location information anywhere in the world. Probation officers can program and map exclusion zones, where individuals are prohibited from entering, lest they set off an alert to their probation officer and risk a technical violation of their probation. Exclusion zones for sex offenders may include day care centers or schools. Supervising officers can also program buffer zones within a certain radius of a prohibited area, so an alarm will sound if the monitored individual approaches an exclusion zone.
Some ankle monitors are equipped to call and record people without warning. Others have microphones and speakers to record conversations that could be used in criminal cases, depending on state law.
While active GPS tracking allows for triangulation in transmittal of information, passive GPS tracking stores data that can be downloaded for a future time.
According to a study conducted by the East Bay Community Law Center of juveniles subjected to electronic monitoring in 58 California counties, any deviation from a daily schedule of school and work required the electronically monitored juvenile to seek permission from a supervising officer 24 hours to a week in advance of the schedule change. 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.
African Americans are more likely than whites to choose prison over electronic monitoring, though reasons for the preference are unclear. Probation officers report African Americans view electronic monitoring as more restrictive than white people perceive it.
Should an individual try to remove or succeed in removing an electronic device, consequences could include jail, prison time, fines or a tightening of the ankle monitor.
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. In describing the monitor, Christopher said:
Smartphones with biometric security systems 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. The tracking applications known as Smart-LINK and Shadowtrack may be installed on the individual's personal cellphone, referred to as a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), or integrated into a cell phone law enforcement buys or leases from a vendor and then assigns to an individual upon their release into the community. The American Probation and Parole Association (APPA) supports the use of smart phones for surveillance because the organization believes the cell phone, with its calendar feature, cuts down on technical violations in which an offender misses an appointment with a probation officer.
Automobile ignition interlock device The California Department of Motor Vehicles describes an automobile ignition interlock device (IID) as a device the size of a cell phone that is wired to your car or truck's' ignition to require an individual to offer a breath sample before the engine will start. If the sample is not satisfactory or indicates alcohol consumption, the engine will not ignite. Periodic breath samples are required during a driver's route to ensure the driver is not stopping to drink along the way.
SCRAM Secure Continuous Remote Alcohol Monitoring (SCRAM) in the form of a wrist band or hand-held device may be used to sample a client's breath and perspiration every 30 minutes to report blood alcohol level to a supervising officer. One SCRAM vendor advertises a "wireless, portable breath alcohol device with automated facial recognition and GPS with every single test."
Automated Parole or probation check-in platforms In the early 1990s, New York City piloted 16 automated probation check-in machines, also known as probation kiosks, with each $750,000 kiosk featuring a video screen, keypad and infrared scanner for low-risk offenders to answer questions as to whether they had been re-arrested, obtained a job or needed counseling. By 2004, after a budget-strained NYC deemed the kiosk program a success, reducing costs while freeing probation officers to meet personally with priority high-risk offenders, the automated check-in centers were instituted for 30,000 offenders. By 2015, 70% of the city's probation population was expected to use the automated kiosks.
ION Wearable ION Wearable was launched in 2021, and features a discreet wearable that can measure transdermal alcohol continuously, paired with a smartphone app to view data and send automatically generated reports. The sensor is based on patented and peer-reviewed enzymatic cartridge technology. Readings report alcohol consumption as 'clear' or 'signal detected', and the built-in skin proximity sensors can measure that the wearable is being worn continuously with an 'insufficient skin contact' if the wearable is removed. ION Wearable is being marketed to individuals wishing to rebuild trust after a DUI, custody case, or wanting to rebuild trust through connected support and accountability in the app.
Costs and Benefits Proponents of the use of electronic monitors to control individuals outside of carceral institutions argue that use of electronic monitoring reduces both the financial and social costs associated with incarceration. They assert that electronic monitoring allows individuals to be penalized in a more humane manner, allowing them to maintain a family life and participate in rehabilitation, with a net reduction in recidivism. They also assert that monitoring certain classes of offenders, such as sex offenders, may reduce recidivism. They argue that electronic monitoring can help address overcrowding in prisons and jails.