Electronic monitoring - dangerous if left to its own devices?

The March 2014 issue of Criminal Justice Matters is now available and contains a series of articles exploring the use of electronic monitoring (EM) in the UK and abroad.

Guest editor, Professor Mike Nellis, of the University of Strathclyde considers the role of the private sector in dispersing 'offender surveillance outside the boundaries of a recognisable criminal justice system'. Reflecting on the articles in this issue of cjm, Mike warns that;

Far from EM supporting social work, as it has sometimes done, social assistance from non-professionals comes to support EM as an end in itself. Nor does it matter that EM has only a demonstrably ‘limited’, short-term effect – the obvious political solution to that is further successive periods of EM, intermittent or incessant oversight with one technology or another, maybe several all at once. We live in new times.

This editorial from Mike is a free to access article and the entire issue of Criminal Justice Matters can be accessed with a subscription (or CCJS membership) via the Taylor & Francis website.