A New Island in the Carceral Archipelago
May 24, 2019 7:32 AM   Subscribe

"The military-surplus control console had three buttons labeled “Search,” “Track,” and “Destroy”—the last of which was mercifully disabled but often vigorously pushed by young probationers." An inventor of the first ankle bracelet trackers for criminals points out that smart phones will do everything that ankle bracelets will, are actually useful to prisoners re-entering society, and can be loaded with apps that will help prisoners remember court and parole officer dates, detect drug and alcohol use, and reward rehabilitation. posted by ckridge (10 comments total) 14 users marked this as a favorite
 
For those wondering the obvious question but who don't have time to read the article, you pair the phone with a bracelet or anklet so the probationer can't just leave it at home and run off.
posted by Wretch729 at 7:41 AM on May 24, 2019 [3 favorites]


I know FitBit users who voluntarily and routinely pair their phone with their bracelet and suffer crippling anxiety if they leave the house without either.

We're building the carceral archipelago ourselves, of our own diminishing volition, one little convenience at a time.
posted by flabdablet at 7:49 AM on May 24, 2019 [14 favorites]


Okay, leaving all else aside: This is going to literally increase the number of people in the prison industrial complex because judges, politicians and middle class white people are going to think, "hey, it's hardly a punishment at all, why not require it along with a fine or a ticket" and because the makers/minders of these devices are going to want to expand their use. Because this is less expensive and less invasive than actually putting someone in jail, there will be a huge incentive to start using it on new populations.
posted by Frowner at 7:56 AM on May 24, 2019 [45 favorites]


I can see this being used on, say, recipients of unemployment benefits, certainly in Britain or Australia today. Then disability benefits, single parents' benefits (with the obvious moralistic dogwhistles to the tabloids) and such. After all, it's Hardworking Taxpayers' money, and they hate to see it squandered, or if they have to see it squandered, at least let them see the squanderer clapped in the village stocks and pelted with rotten fruit.

Rollout to those receiving state pensions may wait until the Baby Boomers have died off and retirees are no longer a voting block to be pandered to. Sorry, Gen X and younger, but unless you build up a mountain of capital, this is also your fate should you no longer be able to run on the treadmill.
posted by acb at 8:19 AM on May 24, 2019 [8 favorites]


China: Our new Social Credit system will enable sweeping governmental oversight of our population.

US: Hold my beer.
posted by Revvy at 9:22 AM on May 24, 2019 [14 favorites]


All true. Way back in Asylums, though, Erving Goffman pointed out that prisons' enveloping, insular nature makes them fit only for rehabilitating criminals to live in prisons. Using cell phones as surveillance and reward systems is, however insidious and subject to abuse, the first new technology for rehabilitating criminals to live out in the world we have seen in some time.

Maybe the whole concept of rehabilitation is itself oppressive. I don't know. I do know that if I couldn't hold a job, stay out of bad company, or stay sober, I would want help in just about any available form. Maybe that shows I am indoctrinated. It does seem to me that being oppressed while out on the street is better than being oppressed while locked in a concrete box. This is particularly so if the electronic shackle tethering me is very similar to one everyone else is using voluntarily.
posted by ckridge at 9:49 AM on May 24, 2019 [2 favorites]


China: Our new Social Credit system will enable sweeping governmental oversight of our population.

Shenzhen is already so hard wired that you can get jaywalking fines automatically removed from your WeChat bank account based on facial recognition alone. And then apparently there's a board of shame that displays face pics of violators.

Getting lost somewhere in British Colombia is starting to sound pretty good.
posted by loquacious at 10:20 AM on May 24, 2019 [8 favorites]


This is going to literally increase the number of people in the prison industrial complex

That seems like a very defeatist type of reasoning to me. It's essentially saying that anything that makes convicts' lives worse is bad because it makes their lives worse, but anything that makes their lives better is bad because it will lead to there being more convicts. It's a generic argument you can use against virtually any kind of reform, and I see it in practice all the time, for instance with cannabis legalization: locking up people for possessing cannabis is bad, but not locking up people for it is also bad because it reduces pressure on legislators to expunge past convictions. A few years ago, it was more like this: keeping same-sex marriage illegal is bad because denies people their civil rights, but legalizing it is bad because it undermines reforms for transgender people.

Incrementalism may be frustrating, but it gets results, and the alternative is usually just maintaining the status quo. It's one thing to say incremental reforms shouldn't be a priority, but it's something else when people actively oppose reforms because they think we should all be holding out for something better.
posted by shponglespore at 12:06 PM on May 24, 2019 [2 favorites]


I do know that if I couldn't hold a job, stay out of bad company, or stay sober, I would want help in just about any available form.

If you can't hold a job, you need job counseling or possibly physical and mental health treatment.

If you can't stay sober, you definitely need mental health treatment/a sobriety program.

If you can't "stay out of bad company" by which I guess we mean "stay away from addicted people/people in gangs who will pressure me to go along" then you need social programs that address those things. There are plenty of drugs and gangs inside prisons.

Basically the only problem incarceration addresses is "what do we do with someone who is dangerous because they commit violence against other people?" It's not that great at that either but we have so far failed to come up with better options.

It does not cure mental illness or drug addiction or social problems.

Neither will this.
posted by emjaybee at 1:07 PM on May 24, 2019 [9 favorites]


I can speak to this a little bit, because ankle bracelet monitoring was one of the options I was given when I pled guilty to my second DUI, along with two weeks of jail time (really a month, but with time off for good behavior, assuming that I behaved well, of course) or a month of work release. After considering my options, I took the work release. Aside from not wanting to go to regular jail, a month in work release, even though I was charged $22 a day for it, was still much cheaper than what a year of per-diem charges for ankle bracelet monitoring would cost. Plus, I had little faith in the monitoring system, which wasn't keyed to location but to monitoring my blood-alcohol level. I wasn't worried that I'd drink and set it off--I'd gotten sober several months before entering my plea, and remain so to this day--but that it would register a false positive. I'd previously had a BAIID (blood alcohol ignition interlock device) on my car, so that I could drive, and gotten more than one false positive while I was driving (the device would prompt me to blow into it not only when I started the car but periodically during all but very short drives), and when I reported this to the people who installed it (a car customization place that specialized in chrome spinners--if you should find yourself in my shoes, don't go for the cheapest vendor, folks), they didn't seem to much care. So, I took the Jail Lite option, and I've had worse times; in fact, I did my Step 1 when I was riding my bicycle to work one morning.

Later, when I was going through mandatory drug/alcohol counseling, I talked to some people in the program who had gone for the ankle bracelet option, and I was very glad that I'd turned it down. They reported false positives all the time, and the way that they usually found out about it was that, when they went to court (people who were convicted of drug/alcohol offenses had to periodically go to court to update them on their probationary progress regarding fines, the mandatory classes, etc.), they were taken into custody for violating their probation/parole, and the monitor was cut off; even if the court accepted their insistence that they hadn't drunk, they had to have the ankle monitor reattached at their expense. Now, alcoholics lie all the time about their drinking; I certainly did. But I remembered my own false positives with the BAIID and didn't scoff. I do not think that it would have helped my recovery much if I'd had that sword of Damocles hanging over my head, and I don't know if I'd have stayed sober after its removal if that's what had been keeping me sober instead of my program.

So, generally, I agree that it's really the sort of thing that only makes sense if you don't think about it too hard. I could understand those early experimental subjects who pressed the "Destroy" button.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:07 PM on May 24, 2019 [10 favorites]


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