Working with Offenders
Electronic Monitoring In the Criminal Justice System
This paper reviews developments in electronic monitoring technologies, including passive and active systems and Global Positioning Systems; describing their different applications in Australia and the relevant legislative framework. Advantages and disadvantages control are analysed, whilst considering ethical, legal and practical issues.
Title: Electronic Monitoring In the Criminal Justice System
Series: Trends & Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice No. 254 (Australian Institute of Criminology)
Number of pages: 6
Date published: May 2003
Criminal justice authorities may need to control the location of an individual without resorting to imprisonment. eg. police may want to ensure that the defendant stays away from the complainant before a criminal trial. After conviction, a judge may wish to place limits on an offender's freedom while not employing a full-time custodial sanction. Community-based programs work with individual's release conditions through reporting to officials and curfew conformance. Electronic monitoring is a technological means of enforcing such conditions. Using tracking systems, criminal justice agencies can monitor an individual's location and be alerted to any unauthorised movements. Technology can be useful in detention, restriction and surveillance, yet constant surveillance, particularly through the use of devices fixed to the body, raises serious civil liberty and ethical concerns.
With costly high prison populations and rapidly expanding technology, governments face a critical point concerning electronic monitoring.
There are three main rationales for the system usage:
Detention
Ensures individual remains in same place, ie. curfews. Remains most popular scheme.Restriction
Ensures individual does not enter proscribed areas. ie. victim's neighbourhood.Surveillance
Continuous tracking without restricting their movement.
Electronic Monitoring Technologies
Passive Systems
Wearers periodically checked by telephone to ensure they are where they're supposed to be.
Active Systems
Authorities are alerted when the wearer violates the area he/she is restricted to. A device can also be given other people ie. victims, where they can be alerted if the monitored wearer breaks their constraints, bringing improved time efficiency to any potential situation.
Global Positioning Systems
GPS consists of three components:
Satellites
Network of ground stations
Mobile user devices
Measuring user's distance from three different satellites identifies user's location. This technology is used in military operations, search and rescue, police surveillance, vehicle tracking etc. GPS is now being implemented in a number of US. Jurisdictions.
Other Electronic Monitoring Proposals
Miniature tracking devices are also being tested; with technology so advanced it can be planted beneath the individual's skin, monitoring location and physiological effects. Yet the potential for civil action due to any adverse surgery consequences demands huge consideration. Other suggestions include biochemical characteristics such as tracking wearer's blood pressure, and the use of miniature video cameras.
Applications
Pre Trial
While the accused is on bail, the monitoring can be a useful locator of the individual's whereabouts. Only Western Australia specifically uses this pre-trial method.Primary Sentencing
Can be used as a primary sentencing option. This restriction and surveillance reduces the likelihood of the individual offending again, particularly against the initial victim.Post Prison
This system is used in the early release of a prisoner into the community.
Electronic Monitoring Advantages
Reduces prison populations
Government cost efficiency - fewer prison /administration costs
Improvement of rehabilitation - closer to families, work environment etc.
Electronic Monitoring Disadvantages
Lack of incapacitation - individuals could easily offend when tagged
Victims feel cheated through lenient sentencing
Ethical, Legal and Practical Issues
The power of modern monitoring technologies to survey people is questioned by contravening personal liberty.
Avoids the violence, intimidation, and degrading punishment of prison sentences
If electronic monitoring results in increased breach rates, then prison population will be increased, hence cost inefficiency.
Report Conclusion
Up to now, the report found New South Wales, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States have enjoyed cost effectiveness through electronic monitoring. There system has an 80% compliance rate in the United Kingdom and 90% compliance in Sweden, proving this method has been so far successful. Despite the fact electronic monitoring has been in force for two decades, there are still ethical and legal issues to consider. Capable procedures are required to deal with unethical practices, and informed consent of affected should be guaranteed.
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Last update: Tuesday, August 14, 2007