book review - electronic monitoring of offenders

http://crj.sagepub.comCriminology and Criminal Justice

DOI: 10.1177/146680250600600112 2006; 6; 155 Criminology and Criminal Justice

J. Robert Lilly Issues in Community and Criminal JusticeMonograph 5

Book Review: Electronic Monitoring of Offenders: Key Developments

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reinforced, and accountability enhanced, if independent auditors and com-plaints bodies were to perform these functions separately, openly and trans-parently in association with each other and the police department.

The New World of Police Accountability is an invaluable text for under-standing how policy and practice in the closely connected fields of policeaccountability and complaints have developed. Although coverage is limited tothe US situation, Walkers technique of separating elements out, tracing theirhistory and then demonstrating their connections makes this useful reading forall those with practice and research interests in police accountability.

Keith Bottomley, Anthea Hucklesby, George Mair and Mike NellisElectronic Monitoring of Offenders: Key Developments Issues in Communityand Criminal JusticeMonograph 5London: NAPO, 2004. 92 pp. 10.00 ISBN 14783649 and0901617202

Reviewed by J. Robert Lilly, Chase College of Law, Northern KentuckyUniversity, USA

While radio frequency-based electronic monitoring (hereafter EM) of offenderswas introduced in the United States in the early 1980s, it is in England andWales during the last 15 years that it has received its most persistent political,economic, academic and policy-oriented research attention. The monographreviewed here is an excellent and timely contribution to this tradition. Itcontains useful summaries of previous research findings on EM, a report on apilot programme on its new uses that nearly died in birth and a brilliant criticaltheoretical overview of EM and its future. It should appeal greatly to anyoneworld-wide who is interested in EM and its criminal justice sibling, GlobalPositioning System tracking.

This monographthe first in the Issues in Community and Criminal Justiceseries to incorporate the work of more than one authorcontains ten shortchapters that address two major topics. The new uses sections were originallywritten by Bottomley, Hucklesby and Mair for the Home Office Research andStatistics Directorate as an evaluative study on the introduction of two newuses of EM under the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000. Theywere asked to evaluate the implementation of electronically monitored ordersas an additional requirement of community penalties and the electronicmonitoring of curfew orders (or other requirement) imposed on a prisonerreleased on licence.

The three-site pilot (Hampshire, Nottinghamshire and West Yorkshire) soonencountered a number of troubling issues that among other reasons resultedfrom trying to start what was then a novel and problematic use of EM in arapidly changing legal and organizational context. Included among the specificproblems were an extremely low adoption of the new provisions, serious

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problems with data recording and the encroachment of the daft idea thatcriminal justice research is always best conducted with randomized controltrials. Wisely, and in agreement with the Home Office, the research was re-focused to examine the implementation process and to explore why the take-upwas so low. Surprisingly, perhaps, and in direct opposition to New Laboursclaim that its governance would be evidence-based, the Home Office ended theproject earlyostensibly based on an external review that claimed it was costinefficient. The research team never saw the external review and with only fivemonths left in its contract with the University of Hull when terminated: theresearch staff were paid anyway.

In yet another turn-about, and against the long-held tradition of publishingtaxpayer-funded research, the Home Office turned its back on the researchersand the time, energy and commitment they had given the project and declinedto let their final report see the light of dayat least under its moniker. TheHome Offices loss is indeed the Issues in Community and Criminal Justicesseries gain because of the stellar salvaging work by Bottomley et al.

Their major findings (pp. 4751)conveniently summarized with 30 bul-leted points under the headings of policy planning, implementation, new uses inpractice, monitoring and evaluation and future uses of electronic monitoringshould be required reading for anyone remotely connected with criminal justicepolicy. With unusual clarity they address the pitfalls of and the partiesresponsible for poor planning and weak conceptualization of the implementa-tion of the new uses of EM that again led to a gap between official expectationsand its actual use. It is because of these and other sharp insights that theirfindings deserve to be generalized as a short-hand manual on how new criminaljustice policiesnot only ones involving EMshould be implemented (seeMair, 2005 for an excellent discussion of why EM in England and Wales is notbased on supportive evidence-based research).

Equally praiseworthy is Nelliss contribution (pp. 5385). In another ofwhat is already an extensive record of first rate EM articles and bookchaptersat least 17 since 1991here he gives the reader what the serieseditor, Steve Collet, correctly identifies as an incisive introduction to the keyhistorical and theoretical perspectives (p. 4) surrounding EM. This well-deserved compliment is based in part on Nelliss ample skills at identifying notonly the micro-precursors of EM within traditional probation (reporting,tracking and curfews) but how its most recent developments fit into the largermacro context of penal change. The compliment, however, does not go farenough. It does not recognize that much of Nelliss EM workincluding thepresent piecepushes the theoretical envelope about what EM means tocriminal justice and beyond it. Sections of his work entitled ConceptualizingSurveillance in Community Supervision and Concluding Remarks illustratethis point.

With typical candor Nellis points out the existing British empirical researchon EM has lacked the conceptual sophistication to characterize exactly what isdistinctive and new about electronic monitoring as a modality of social control,or to explain why it has come into being at this point in time (p. 71). This, he

Criminology & Criminal Justice 6(1)156


explains, requires a prior understanding of the advent and development ofmanagerialism in criminal justice and its affinity for creating expectations ofand desires for meticulous regulation, co-ordination of activities, strategies andprocesses. Monitoring is intrinsic to the managerialism commitment to check-ing outcome against intentions and correcting deviations with efficient, subtleand sophisticated means. It is within this general [criminal justice] milieu thatthe electronic monitoring of offenders . . . emerged and developed (p. 71).

Nellis sagaciously observes that the surveillant-managerial milieu has beenstrengthenedculturally and politicallyby post-9/11 developments and nodoubt also by the more recent 7/7 bombings on Londons public transporta-tion. Under these circumstances and with the new single generic communitypunishment order . . . electronic monitoring-technologies could become thedefining ingredient of supervision outside of prison (p. 79). This should not besurprising in view of the fact that the remote monitoring of locatability ofgoods and people in near real-time is now a global development of enormousproportions. Electronically monitoring offenders is one aspect of this deepermovement. To understand it more fully Nellis advises examining the work ofthe emerging field of sociology of surveillance with its search for the reasonswhy the electronic monitoring of locations and schedules, the tagging andtracking of goods and people in a multiplicity of social, political and economiccontexts is becoming more pervasive (p. 82).

In sum, this is a valuable and important monograph. It is fantastic as itincludes so much timely and provocative material within so few pages. It isdestined to be a classic contribution to our understanding of the developmentand future of EM. It should serve as a springboard to a number of importanttheoretical and methodological debates that confront policy makers and eva-luative researchers wherever EM is in place or being considered. Thus far it isthe best overall account of the Anglo-American model of EM and can well-serve comparative research efforts on other monitoring plans. Its lasting valuemay well be the lesson that perseverance pays off with efforts to understandEM. It should not be ignored, especially by EM advocates inclined to excessivepraise and promise.

Reference

Mair, George (2005) Electronic Monitoring in England and Wales: Evidence-Based or Not?, Criminal Justice 5(3): 25777.

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book review - electronic monitoring of offenders

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