Comparing electronic monitoring regimes: length, breadth, depth, weight equals tightness

This paper compares the use of electronic monitoring (EM) in three European jurisdictions – Belgium, England and the Netherlands. It suggests that rates of use, the accepted method of comparison in relation to imprisonment and a proxy measure of ‘punitiveness’, provide a misleading picture when applied to EM. This paper transforms the concept of ‘tightness’ (Crewe, 2011) from a dimension of weight to encompass the overlapping elements of length, breadth, depth and weight, to provide a framework for analysing how EM regimes are designed to disrupt the lives of monitored individuals. EM regimes are diverse and ‘tightness’ varied as much, if not more, within as between jurisdictions. Comparisons of ‘tightness’ also inverted the scale of ‘punitiveness’ produced using rates of use.

Publication year:2021

Keywords:Electronic monitoring, comparative penology, community sentences

BOF-keylabel:yes

IOF-keylabel:yes

BOF-publication weight:1

Authors:International

Authors from:Higher Education

Accessibility:Open