Electronic Monitoring and the Community Supervision of Offenders (From Alternatives to Prison: Options for an Insecure Society, P 224-247, 2004, Anthony Bottoms, Sue Rex, et al. eds. -- See NCJ-210129)

• NCJ Number: 210138
• Author(s): Mike Nellis
• Date Published: 2004
• Length: 24 pages
• Sale Source: Willan Publishing
• Publication Format: Book Chapter
• Publication Type: Program/Project Description
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This chapter presents an overview on the development, implementation, and general acceptance of electronic monitoring as a community-based penalty in the United Kingdom.

Abstract

The emergence and existence of electronic monitoring (EM) in the United Kingdom is evident by the three private-sector monitoring centers in the country. EM makes use of the same broad developments in information and communication technology to make possible new ways of regulating behavior and sustaining social order. This chapter discusses the precursors of EM, the development of EM, and the enforcement of EM as a community penalty. Today, debates exist on the proper place of EM-based penalties. Even though over 10,000 people a day are electronically monitored in England and Wales, as well as Scotland, there remains a discrepancy between government expectations and desires and the scale of actual use. Undoubtedly, EM will remain vulnerable to populist critique; however, in that, it is grounded in its transformative capacity of the broader technological changes, it will continue to stimulate expectations of what is both possible and desirable in crime control. Notes, references