E-Carceration is quickly being embraced as an alternative to pretrial detention, most notably in the form of ankle monitors. Here, we collect articles about this alarming trend.
Nationwide, there’s a growing use of GPS monitoring for people charged with crimes. But the practice is largely unregulated, leaving many with huge personal and financial costs....
The most rigorous analysis of why electronic monitoring is not an alternative to incarceration but an alternative form of it. Produced by the Challenging E-Carceration project, part of our #NoDigitalPrisons campaign....
The Economist spoke with our client and team in Indianapolis about the stigma, cost, and difficulty of electronic monitoring as an alternative to cash bail. ...
From the video: "Pre-trial detention has shifted from brick and mortar prisons to ankle monitors for people that have yet to be charged with a crime. Advocates say that it's an alternative form of incarceration as they see an increasing number of people held without bond."...
"In the early August raids on seven workplaces in Mississippi, authorities apparently used GPS location tracking information to verify that people who working in certain places did not have valid permits."...
When 19-year-old Daehaun White was released from jail in St. Louis, he was so overjoyed that he forgot to check in with a representative for the company EMASS, which straps black boxes with GPS monitoring onto the ankles of people on pretrial release. Soon, White's arrest on minor charges spiraled into a debt exceeding $800, all owed to a company that charges defendants $10 a day plus other excessive fees. The city of St. Louis offers defendants no hearing to determine whether they can pay fees for such onerous surveillance....
Over half of all pretrial service programs use video for people’s initial bail hearings! The audio and visual quality of the video is often low, such that defendants sometimes can't even hear what's going on at all. In some places, such as Philadelphia, a person's public defender is only available to them via video, disabling them from having any private interaction with their counsel before or during arraignment and calling into question if defendants' Sixth Amendment right to counsel is being met. Summarized by: Jacob Koffler...
