Monitored youth: Understanding the consequences of (electronic) surveillance practices on young people and their (deviant) behaviour (FWOTM588)

This project aims at gaining insights into the effects of surveillance practices directed toward young people in Belgium. Therefore this research proposal will discuss and analyse the consequences of electronic surveillance techniques and practices on youth delinquency. Beside the efficiency of technologies such as surveillance cameras, biometrics, tracking of internet data or integrated digital data bases used in order to reduce disorder and crimes committed by young people, this research focuses on the "other" consequences generated by an excessively monitored environment on the development of young people. Surveillance technologies can in some way reduce delinquency locally but they can also induce new kinds of risks or violence. They can, for example, enhance prejudice toward specific groups of young people or reinforce fear and insecurity, therefore breaching important privacy rights. In the framework of this project such practices as well as their impact on youngsters are the object of empirical research that will be made in schools and other public spaces frequented by young people.

Keywords:Sentencing, Pre-Trial Detention, Community Policing, Restorative Justice, Criminal Policy, Criminal Law, Prison Systems, Juvenile Justice, Economic Criminality, Criminal Procedure

Disciplines:Law, Criminology