Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Surveillance-Based Compliance using Electronic Monitoring

  • Chapter
What Works in Offender Compliance

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).

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  • Bales, W., Mann, K., Blomberg, T., Gaes, G., Barrick, K., Dhungana, K. and McManus, B. (2010) A Qualitative and Quantitative Assessment of Electronic Monitoring. Report for the National Institute of Justice Miami Florida State University

    Google Scholar 

  • Bauman, Z. (2011) ‘Strange Adventures of Privacy (3)’. in Z. Bauman (Ed.) 44 Letters from the Liquid Modern World. Cambridge: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bigo, D. (2006) ‘Security, Exception, Ban and Surveillance’. in D. Lyon (Ed.) Theorising Surveillance: the Panopticon and Beyond. Cullompton: Willan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Binkley, S. (2009) ‘Governmentality, Temporality and Practice: From the Individualization of Risk to the “Contradictory Movements Of The Soul”’. Time and Society 18(1), 86–105.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bishop, L. (2010) ‘The Challenges of GPS and Sex Offender Management’. Federal Probation 74(2). 35–41.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bogard, W. (1996) The Simulation of Surveillance: Hypercontrol in Telematic Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bogard, W. (2010) ‘Deleuze and Machines: A Politics of Technology?’ in M. Poster and D. Savat (Eds) Deleuze and New Technology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bonta, J., Rooney, J. and Wallace-Capreta, S. (1999) Electronic Monitoring in Canada. Canada: Public Works and Government Services.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bottoms, A. E. (1983) ‘Neglected Features of Contemporary Penal Systems’. in D. Garland and P. Young (Eds) The Power to Punish: Contemporary Penalty and Social Analysis. London: Heinemann.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bottoms, A. E. (2001) ‘Compliance and Community Penalties’. in A. E. Bottoms, L. Gelsthorpe and S. Rex (Eds) Community Penalties; Change and Challenges. Cullompton: Willan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Braidotti, R. (2003) ‘The Material Foundations of Virtual Subjectivity’. in G. Kreutzer and H. Schelowe (Eds) Agents of Change: Virtuality, Gender and the Challenge to the Traditional University. Opladen: Leske and Budrich.

    Google Scholar 

  • Castells, M. (2000) The Rise of the Network Society. Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Collett, S. (2013) ‘Riots, Rehabilitation and Revolution’. Howard Journal of Criminal Justice (forthcoming).

    Google Scholar 

  • Crawford, A. (2003) ‘Contractual Governance of Deviant Behaviour’. Journal of Law and Society 30(4), 479–505.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Criminal Justice Joint Inspection. (2008) A Complicated Business: A Joint Inspection of Electronically Monitored Curfew Requirements, Orders and Licences. London: HMI Probation; HMI Court Administration and HMI Constabulary.

    Google Scholar 

  • Criminal Justice Joint Inspection. (2012) It’s Complicated: The Management of Electronically Monitored Curfews. London: HMI Probation; HMI Court Administration and HMI Constabulary.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deleuze, G. (1990) ‘Postscript on Control Societies’. L’Autre Journal 1 May 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deleuze, G. (1995) ‘Control and Becoming: Conversation with Tony Negri’. in Negotiations. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fionda, J. (2000) ‘New Managerialism, Credibility and the Sanitisation of Criminal Justice’. in P. Green and A. Rutherford (Eds) Criminal Policy in Transition. Oxford: Hart Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Franko Aas, K. (2004) ‘From Narrative to Database: Technological Change and Penal Culture’. Punishment and Society 6(4), 379–393.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • G4S International. (2009) ‘Using Curfews to Change Behaviour’. Monitoring Matters 3, 35–37.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gainey, R. R. and Payne, B. K. (2000) ‘Understanding the Experience of House Arrest with Electronic Monitoring: An Analysis of Quantitative and Qualitative Data’. International Journal of. Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 44(1), 84–96.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Geis, S. V., Gainey, R., Cohen, M. I., Healy, E., Duplantier, D., Yeide, M., Bekelman, A., Bobnis, A. and Hopps, M. (2012) Monitoring High Risk Offenders with GPS Technology: An Evaluation of the California Supervision Programme. Final Report. Washington: National Institute of Justice.

    Google Scholar 

  • Doffiing, D. (2009) ‘Is There a Future for RF in a GPS World?’ Journal of Offender Monitoring. 22 (1) 12–15.

    Google Scholar 

  • Geohegan, R. (2012) Future of Corrections: Exploring the Use of Electronic Monitoring. London: Policy Exchange.

    Google Scholar 

  • Herzog-Evans, M. (2012) ‘The Six Month Limit to Community Measures “Under Prison Registry”: A Study of Professional Perception’. European Journal of Probation 4(2), 23–45.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hucklesby, A. (2008) ‘Vehicles of Desistance? The Impact of Electronically Monitored Curfew Orders’. Criminology and Criminal Justice 8, 51–71.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hucklesby, A. (2009) ‘Understanding Offender’s Compliance: A Case Study of Electronically Monitored Curfew Orders’. Journal of Law and Society. 36(2), 48–71.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hucklesby, A. (2011) ‘The Working Life of Electronic Monitoring Officers’. Criminology and Criminal justice 11(1), 1–18.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jones, A. (2005) ‘A Tagging Tale: The Work of the Monitoring Officer: Electronically Monitoring Offenders in England and Wales’. Surveillance & Society 2(4), 581–588.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jones, R. (2006) ‘Architecture, Criminal Justice and Control’, in S. Armstrong and L. McAra (Eds) Perspectives on Punishment: The Contours of Control. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • King, D. and Gibbs, A. (2003) ‘Is Home Detention in New Zealand Disadvantaging Women and Children?’ Probation Journal 50, 115–126.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lessig, L. (1999) Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace. New York: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lianos, M. and Douglas, M. (2000) ‘Dangerisation and the End of Deviance: The Institutional Environment’. in D. Garland and R. Sparks (Eds) Criminology and Social Theory. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lilly, J. R. and Nellis, M. (2012) ‘The Limits of Technoutopianism: Electronic Monitoring in The United States of America’. in M. Nellis, K. Beyens and D. Kaminski (Eds) Electronically Monitored Punishment: International and Critical Perspectives. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Martin, J. S., Hanrahan, K. and Bowers, J. H. (2009). ‘Offenders’ Perceptions of House Arrest and Electronic Monitoring’. Journal of Offender Rehabilitation 48, 547–570.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Martinovic, M. (2002) The Punitiveness of Electronically Monitored Community-Based Programmes. Paper presented at the Making the Community Safer Conference, Perth, 23–24 September 2002.

    Google Scholar 

  • Martinovic, M. (2007) ‘Home Detention; Issues, Dilemmas and Impacts for Detainees Co-Residing Family Members’. Current Issues in Criminal Justice 19(1), 90–105.

    Google Scholar 

  • Martinovic, M. (2010) ‘Increasing Compliance on Home Detention-Based Sanctions Through Utilization of an Intensive Intervention Support Programme’. Current Issues in Criminal Justice 21(3), 413–435.

    Google Scholar 

  • Martinovic, M. and Schluter, P. (2012) ‘A Researcher’s Experience of Wearing a GPS-EM Device’. Current lssues in Criminal Justice 23(3), 413–432.

    Google Scholar 

  • McKnight, A. S., Fell, J. C. and Auld-Owens, A. (2012) Transdermal Alcohol Monitoring: Case Studies. Washington, DC: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

    Google Scholar 

  • Melbin, M. (1987) Night as Frontier: Colonizing the World after Dark. New York: The Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Murray, S. and Campfield, S. (2011) GPS Tracking of Persistent and Prolific Offenders in Hertfordshire. Workshop Presentation at 7th CEP Electronic Monitoring Conference, Evora, Portugal. May 2011.

    Google Scholar 

  • Myers, R. (2011) ‘Monitoring Sex Offenders by GPS III’. Sex Offender Law Report 12(4), 60–63.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nellis, M. (2009a) ‘Mobility, Locatability and the Satellite Tracking of Offenders’. in K. Franco Aas, H. O. Gundus and H. M. Lommell (Eds) Technologies of Insecurity: The Surveillance of Everyday Life. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nellis, M. (2009b) ‘Surveillance and Confinement: Understanding Offender Experiences of Electronically Monitored Curfews’. European Journal of Probation 1(1), 41–65.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nellis, M. (2009c) ‘Electronic Monitoring and Penal Control in a Telematic Society’. in J. Doakes, P. Knepper and J. Shapland (Eds) Urban Crime Prevention, Surveillance and Restorative Justice: Effects of Social Technologies , Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nellis, M. (2012) ‘The GPS Satellite Tracking of Sex Offenders in the USA’. in J. Brayford, F. Cowe and J. Deering (Eds) Sex Offenders: Punish, Help, Change or Control. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nellis, M., Beyens, K. and Kaminski, D. (Eds) (2012) Electronically Monitored Punishment: International and Critical Perspectives. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Padgett, K., Bales, W. and Blomberg, T. (2006) ‘Under Surveillance: An Empirical Test of the Effectiveness and Consequences of Electronic Monitoring’. Criminology and Public Policy 5(1), 103–108.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Parton, N. (2008) ‘Changes in the Form of Social Work Knowledge in Social Work: From the Social to the Informational?’ British Journal of Social Work 38, 253–269.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Paterson, C. (2007) ‘Street-Level Surveillance: Human Agency and the Electronic Monitoring of Offenders’. Surveillance and Society 4(2–3), 314–328.

    Google Scholar 

  • Payne, B. K. and Gainey, R. R. (1998) ‘A Qualitative Assessment of the Pains Experienced on Electronic Monitoring’. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 42(2), 149–163.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Payne, B. K. and Gainey, R. R. (2004) ‘The Electronic Monitoring of Offenders Released from Jail or Prison: Safety, Control and Comparisons to the Incarceration Experience’. The Prison Journal 84(4), 413–435.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pearson, A. (2012) An Evaluation of Winnipeg’s Electronic Monitoring Pilot Project for Youth Auto Theft Offenders, MA thesis, Winnipeg: University of Manitoba.

    Google Scholar 

  • Poster, M. (1996) ‘Databases as Discourse; or, Electronic Interpellations’. in D. Lyon and E. Zureik (Eds) Computers, Surveillance and Privacy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Renzema, M. (2012) ‘Evaluative Research on Electronic Monitoring’. in M. Nellis, K. Beyens and D. Kaminski (Eds) Electronically Monitored Punishment: International and Critical Perspectives. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Renzema, M. and Mayo-Wilson, E. (2005) ‘Can Electronic Monitoring Reduce Crime for Medium to High Risk Offenders?’ Journal of Experimental Criminology 1(2), 215–237.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Richardson, F. (2002) ‘A Personal Experience of Tagging’. Prison Service Journal 142, 39–42.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roberts, J. V. (2004) The Virtual Prison: Community Custody and the Evolution of Imprisonment. Cambridge: University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Robinson, G. and McNeil, F. (2008) ‘Exploring the Dynamics of Compliance with Community Supervision’. Theoretical Criminology 12(4), 431–450.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rouvroy, A. (2011) ‘Technology, Virtuality and Utopia: Govermentality in an Age of Autonomic Computing’. in M. Hildebrandt and A. Rouvroy (Eds) Law, Human Agency and Autonomic Computing: The Philosophy of Law Meeets the Philosophy of Technology. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Royal Academy of Engineers (2011) Global Navigation Space Systems: Reliance and Vulnerabilities. London: Royal Academy of Engineers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Serco (2010) Electronically Monitored Offenders: A Guide for the Judiciary. Norwich: Serco.

    Google Scholar 

  • Staples, W. G. (2005) ‘The Everyday World of House Arrest: Collateral Consequences for Families and Others’. in C. Mele and T. Miller (Eds) Civil Penalties, Social Consequences (pp. 139–159). New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Turkle, S. (2011) Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology than We Do of Each Other. New York: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vanhaelemeesch, D. and Vander Beken, T. (2012). ‘Electronic Monitoring: Convicts’ Experiences in Belgium’. in Social Conflicts, Citizens and Policing. Antwerp: Government of Security Research Paper Series (GofS) Series 6.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors
  1. Mike Nellis
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Swansea University, UK

    Pamela Ugwudike (Lecturer in Criminology) & Peter Raynor (Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice) (Lecturer in Criminology) &  (Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice)

Copyright information

© 2013 Mike Nellis

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Nellis, M. (2013). Surveillance-Based Compliance using Electronic Monitoring. In: Ugwudike, P., Raynor, P. (eds) What Works in Offender Compliance. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137019523_9

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation