HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Electronic tagging is a form of
surveillance Surveillance is the monitoring of behavior, many activities, or information for the purpose of information gathering, influencing, managing or directing. This can include observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment, such as ...
that uses an electronic device affixed to a person. In some jurisdictions, an electronic tag fitted above the ankle is used for people as part of their
bail Bail is a set of pre-trial restrictions that are imposed on a suspect to ensure that they will not hamper the judicial process. Bail is the conditional release of a defendant with the promise to appear in court when required. In some countrie ...
or
probation Probation in criminal law is a period of supervision over an offender, ordered by the court often in lieu of incarceration. In some jurisdictions, the term ''probation'' applies only to community sentences (alternatives to incarceration), such ...
conditions. It is also used in healthcare settings and in immigration contexts. Electronic tagging can be used in combination with the
global positioning system The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of the global navigation satellite ...
(GPS). For short-range monitoring of a person that wears an electronic tag,
radio frequency Radio frequency (RF) is the oscillation rate of an alternating electric current or voltage or of a magnetic, electric or electromagnetic field or mechanical system in the frequency range from around to around . This is roughly between the up ...
technology is used.


History

The
electronic monitoring Electronic tagging is a form of surveillance that uses an electronic device affixed to a person. In some jurisdictions, an electronic tag fitted above the ankle is used for people as part of their bail or probation conditions. It is also used i ...
of humans found its first commercial applications in the 1980s. Portable transceivers that could record the location of volunteers were first developed by a group of researchers at
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...
in the early 1960s. The researchers cited the psychological perspective of
B. F. Skinner Burrhus Frederic Skinner (March 20, 1904 – August 18, 1990) was an American psychologist, behaviorist, author, inventor, and social philosopher. He was a professor of psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974. C ...
as underpinning for their academic project. The portable electronic tag was called ''behavior transmitter-reinforcer'' and could transmit data two-ways between a ''base station'' and a volunteer who simulated a ''young adult offender''. Messages were supposed to be sent to the tag, so as to provide
positive reinforcement In behavioral psychology, reinforcement is a consequence applied that will strengthen an organism's future behavior whenever that behavior is preceded by a specific antecedent stimulus. This strengthening effect may be measured as a higher fr ...
to the young offender and thus assist in
rehabilitation Rehabilitation or Rehab may refer to: Health * Rehabilitation (neuropsychology), therapy to regain or improve neurocognitive function that has been lost or diminished * Rehabilitation (wildlife), treatment of injured wildlife so they can be retur ...
. The head of this research project was Ralph Kirkland Schwitzgebel and his twin brother collaborator, Robert Schwitzgebel (family name later shortened to Gable).Robert S. Gable, Ralph Kirkland Gable, "Remaking the electronic tracking of offenders into a 'persuasive technology, ''Journal of Technology in Human Services'', 2016, vol. 34, pp. 13-31 The main base-station antenna was mounted on the roof of the
Old Cambridge Baptist Church The Old Cambridge Baptist Church is a historic American Baptist church at 400 Harvard Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The congregation was founded in 1844 when several members of First Baptist Church in Cambridge decided to start a new ch ...
; the minister was the dean of the
Harvard Divinity School Harvard Divinity School (HDS) is one of the constituent schools of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school's mission is to educate its students either in the academic study of religion or for leadership roles in religion, gov ...
. Reviewers of the prototype electronic tagging strategy were sceptical. In 1966, the ''
Harvard Law Review The ''Harvard Law Review'' is a law review published by an independent student group at Harvard Law School. According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'', the ''Harvard Law Review''s 2015 impact factor of 4.979 placed the journal first out of 143 ...
'' ridiculed the electronic tags as ''Schwitzgebel Machine'' and a myth emerged, according to which the prototype electronic tagging project used brain implants and transmitted verbal instructions to volunteers. The editor of a well-known U.S. government publication, ''Federal Probation'', rejected a manuscript submitted by Ralph Kirkland Schwitzgebel, and included a letter which read in part: "I get the impression from your article that we are going to make automatons out of our parolees and that the parole officer of the future will be an expert in telemetry, sitting at his large computer, receiving calls day and night, and telling his parolees what to do in all situations and circumstances ..Perhaps we should also be thinking about using electronic devices to rear our children. Since they do not have built-in consciences to tell them right from wrong, all they would have to do is to push the 'mother' button, and she would take over the responsibility for decision-making."
Laurence Tribe Laurence Henry Tribe (born October 10, 1941) is an American legal scholar who is a University Professor Emeritus at Harvard University. He previously served as the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard Law School. A constitutional law sc ...
in 1973 published information on the failed attempts by those involved in the project to find a commercial application for electronic tagging. In the U.S., the 1970s saw an end of rehabilitative sentencing, including for example discretionary parole release. Those found guilty of a
criminal offense In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Can ...
were sent to prison, leading to sudden increase in the prison population.
Probation Probation in criminal law is a period of supervision over an offender, ordered by the court often in lieu of incarceration. In some jurisdictions, the term ''probation'' applies only to community sentences (alternatives to incarceration), such ...
became more common, as judges saw the potential of electronic tagging, leading to an increasing emphasis on
surveillance Surveillance is the monitoring of behavior, many activities, or information for the purpose of information gathering, influencing, managing or directing. This can include observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment, such as ...
. Advances in computer-aided technology made offender monitoring feasible and affordable. After all, the Schwitzgebel prototype had been built out of surplus missile tracking equipment. A collection of early electronic monitoring equipment is housed at the National Museum of Psychology in
Akron, Ohio Akron () is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Summit County. It is located on the western edge of the Glaciated Allegheny Plateau, about south of downtown Cleveland. As of the 2020 Census, the city ...
. The attempt to monitor offenders became moribund until, in 1982, Arizona state district judge, Jack Love, convinced a former sales representative of
Honeywell Information Systems Honeywell International Inc. is an American publicly traded, multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. It primarily operates in four areas of business: aerospace, building technologies, performance m ...
, Michael T. Goss, to start a monitoring company, National Incarceration Monitor and Control Services (NIMCOS). The NIMCOS company built several credit card-sized transmitters that could be strapped onto an ankle. The electronic ankle tag transmitted a
radio signal Radio waves are a type of electromagnetic radiation with the longest wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum, typically with frequencies of 300 gigahertz ( GHz) and below. At 300 GHz, the corresponding wavelength is 1 mm (shor ...
every 60 seconds, which could be picked up by a receiver that was no more than away from the electronic tag. The receiver could be connected to a
telephone A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into e ...
, so that the data from the electronic ankle tag could be sent to a
mainframe computer A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise ...
. The design aim of the electronic tag was the reporting of a potential home detention breach. In 1983, judge Jack Love in a state district court imposed home curfew on three offenders who had been sentenced to probation. The home detention was a probation condition and entailed 30 days of electronic monitoring at home. The NIMCOS electronic ankle tag was trialed on those three probationers, two of whom re-offended. Thus, while the goal of home confinement was satisfied, the aim of reducing crime through probation was not.


Additional technologies


Sweat alcohol content monitor

According to Alcohol Monitoring Services (AMS), Secure Continuous Remote Alcohol Monitoring (SCRAM) is currently available in 35 U.S. states. On 31 March 2021, in
England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...
, so-called sobriety tags started being rolled out for some offenders who commit alcohol-driven crimes after testing the tags in
Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...
in October of the previous year. It monitors sweat samples every 30 minutes and alerts the
probation Probation in criminal law is a period of supervision over an offender, ordered by the court often in lieu of incarceration. In some jurisdictions, the term ''probation'' applies only to community sentences (alternatives to incarceration), such ...
service if alcohol is detected.


Uses


Medical and health

The use of electronic monitoring in medical practice, especially as it relates to the tagging of the elderly and people with
dementia Dementia is a disorder which manifests as a set of related symptoms, which usually surfaces when the brain is damaged by injury or disease. The symptoms involve progressive impairments in memory, thinking, and behavior, which negatively affe ...
, has generated controversy and media attention. Elderly people in care homes can be tagged with the same electronic monitors used to keep track of young offenders. For people suffering from dementia, electronic monitoring might be beneficially used to prevent them from wandering away. The controversy regarding medical use relates to two arguments, one about the safety of the patients and the other about their privacy and human rights.Julian C Hughes and Stephen J Louw, ‘Electronic Tagging of People with Dementia who Wander: Ethical Considerations are Possibly more Important than Practical Benefits' (2002) 325(7369) British Medical Journal 847﹘848
PubMed
At over 40%, there is a high prevalence of wandering among patients with dementia. Of the several methods deployed to keep them from wandering, it is reported that 44% of wanderers with dementia have been kept behind closed doors at some point. Other solutions have included constant surveillance, use of makeshift alarms and, the use of various drugs that carry the risk of adverse effects.


Commercial

Smartphones feature location-based apps to use information from
global positioning system The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of the global navigation satellite ...
(GPS) networks to determine the phone's approximate location.


Parental

A company in Japan has created GPS-enabled uniforms and backpacks. School children in distress would be able to hit a button, immediately summoning a security agent to their location.


Vehicular

Public transit Public transport (also known as public transportation, public transit, mass transit, or simply transit) is a system of transport for passengers by group travel systems available for use by the general public unlike private transport, typi ...
vehicles are outfitted with electronic monitoring devices that communicate with GPS systems, tracking their location. App developers have integrated this technology with mobile-phone apps. Now, passengers are able to receive accurate public transit timetables.


Effectiveness

The use of ankle bracelets, or other electronic monitoring devices, have proven to be effective in research studies and possibly deter crime.Stuart S Yeh (2010). "Cost-benefit analysis of reducing crime through electronic monitoring of parolees and probationers". ''Journal of Criminal Justice''. 1090–1096. Several factors have been identified as necessary to render electronic monitoring effective: appropriately selecting offenders, robust and appropriate technology, fitting tags promptly, responding to breaches promptly, and communication between the criminal justice system and contractors. The Quaker Council for European Affairs thinks that for electronic monitoring to be effective, it should serve to halt a developing criminal career. The National Audit Office in England and Wales commissioned a survey to examine the experiences of electronically monitored offenders and the members of their family. The survey revealed that there was common agreement among survey respondents that electronic monitoring was a more effective punitive measure than fines, and that it was generally more effective than community service. An interviewed offender is credited with saying: "You learn more about other crimes
n prison N, or n, is the fourteenth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''en'' (pronounced ), plural ''ens''. History ...
and I think it gives you a taste to do other crimes because you've sat listening to other people." In 2006, Kathy Padgett, William Bales, and Thomas Bloomberg conducted an evaluation of 75,661 Florida offenders placed on home detention from 1998 to 2002, in which only a small percentage of these offenders was made to wear an electronic monitoring device. Offenders with electronic tagging were compared to those on home detention without. The factors thought to influence the success or failure of community supervision, including type of electronic monitoring device used and criminal history, were measured.Kathy Padgett, William Bales and Thomas Blomberg (2006) "Under Surveillance: An Empirical Test of the Effectiveness and Consequences of Electronic Monitoring" Criminology and Public Policy, pages 61 - 91 . The results showed that offenders who wore electronic tags were both 91.2 percent less likely to abscond and 94.7 percent less likely to commit new offenses, than unmonitored offenders.


Criticisms

The electronic monitoring of a person, on whom an electronic tag is fitted, does not physically restrain this person from leaving a certain area, nor does it prevent this person from the primary aim of probation. Furthermore, the public perception of home detention is that it is a form of lenient punishment. As early as 1988, the Penal Affairs Committee of the
Religious Society of Friends Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abili ...
(Quakers), wrote a briefing in its Green Paper strongly opposing the adoption of electronic monitoring in England and Wales. The Committee noted all the claims made in favor of electronic monitoring but insisted that all such claims could be ‘either demolished or rendered invalid' by arguments against it. The major argument or criticism against it was that on the basis of past experience, electronic monitoring would not absolutely be used on people at risk of custody, but on people who would otherwise have been granted probation or community service. This would lead to a widening of the net of control rather than reducing prison population; it would undermine constructive and supportive interventions. The Penal Committee concluded that the degrading monitoring of fellow human beings, electronically, was morally wrong and unacceptable. In the US in 1990, Ronald Corbett and
Gary T. Marx Gary T. Marx (born 1938) is Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and retired from the University of Colorado in 1996. He has worked in the areas of race and ethnicity, collective behavior and social movements, l ...
criticized the use of electronic monitoring in a paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the
American Society of Criminology The American Society of Criminology (ASC) is an international organization based on the campus of Ohio State University whose members focus on the study of crime and delinquency. It aims to grow and disseminate scholarly research, with members wo ...
,
Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was ...
. In the paper, which was later published in the Justice Quarterly, the authors described ‘the new surveillance' technology as sharing some ethos and the information-gathering techniques found in maximum-security prisons thereby allowing them to diffuse into the broader society. They remarked that ‘we appear to be moving toward, rather than away from, becoming a "maximum-security society".Ronald Corbett and Gary T. Marx, ‘Critique: No Soul In The New Machine: Technofallacies In The Electronic Monitoring Movement' (1991) Justice Quarterly The authors acknowledged the data mining capacity of electronic monitoring devices when they stated that "data in many different forms, from widely separated geographical areas, organizations, and time periods, can easily be merged and analyzed". In 2013, it was reported that many electronic monitoring programs throughout the US were not staffed appropriately. George Drake, a consultant who worked on improving the systems said "Many times when an agency is budgeted for electronic-monitoring equipment, it is only budgeted for the devices themselves". He added that the situation was ‘like buying a hammer and expecting a house to be built. It's simply a tool, and it requires a professional to use that tool and run the program.' Drake warned that programs can get out of control if officials don't develop stringent protocols for how to respond to alerts and don't manage how alerts are generated: "I see agencies with so many alerts that they can't deal with them," Drake said. "They end up just throwing their hands up and saying they can't keep up with them." In Colorado, a review of alert and event data, obtained from the Colorado Department of Corrections under an open-records request, was conducted by matching the names of parolees who appeared in that data with those who appeared in jail arrest records. The data revealed that 212 parole officers were saddled with the duty of responding to nearly 90,000 alerts and notification generated by electronic monitoring devices in the six months reviewed.


Notable instances

* English professional
footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugb ...
Jermaine Pennant Jermaine Lloyd Pennant (born 15 January 1983) is an English former professional footballer who played as a winger. Pennant made over 350 league appearances for 15 clubs, and scored 25 league goals. Born in Nottingham, Pennant played for his lo ...
played a
Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Fo ...
match in 2005 while wearing an electronic tag; he had received the tag for drunk-driving and driving while disqualified. *
Lindsay Lohan Lindsay Dee Lohan ( ; born July 2, 1986) is an American actress and singer. Born in New York City and raised on Long Island, Lohan was signed to Ford Models at the age of three. Having appeared as a regular on the television soap opera '' An ...
failed to appear at a mandatory hearing, and a warrant was issued for her arrest. The judge ordered Lohan to wear a SCRAM bracelet, an electronic device that monitors the sweat for alcohol and alerts authorities if prohibited substances are consumed. *
Roman Polanski Raymond Roman Thierry Polański , group=lower-alpha, name=note_a ( né Liebling; 18 August 1933) is a French-Polish film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. He is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, tw ...
, one of the most famous fugitives from American justice in the world, was arrested in Switzerland. The terms of his release included $4.5 million bail, house arrest wearing an ankle bracelet at his chalet, known as Milky Way, in the Swiss ski resort of Gstaad, after having spent sixty-seven days in a Zurich detention centre. *
Bernard Madoff Bernard Lawrence Madoff ( ; April 29, 1938April 14, 2021) was an American fraudster and financier who was the admitted mastermind of the largest Ponzi scheme in history, worth about $64.8 billion. He was at one time chairman of the NASDAQ ...
, the financier accused in a $50 billion fraud case before trial was ordered under house arrest, with electronic monitoring, and posting $10 million bail against his $7 million Manhattan apartment, and against his wife's homes in Montauk, NY, and Palm Beach, FL. *
Dr. Dre Andre Romelle Young (born February 18, 1965), known professionally as Dr. Dre, is an American rapper and record producer. He is the founder and CEO of Aftermath Entertainment and Beats Electronics, and previously co-founded, co-owned, and w ...
(Andre Young), American rapper and record producer, was arrested in 1992 for assaulting record producer Damon Thomas and later pleaded guilty to assault on a police officer, eventually serving house arrest and wearing a police monitoring ankle bracelet.


Jurisdictions


United Kingdom

Those subject to electronic monitoring may be given curfews as part of
bail Bail is a set of pre-trial restrictions that are imposed on a suspect to ensure that they will not hamper the judicial process. Bail is the conditional release of a defendant with the promise to appear in court when required. In some countrie ...
conditions, sentenced under the Criminal Justice Act 2003 in England and Wales (with separate legislation applying in Scotland). Alternatively offenders may be released from a prison on a
Home Detention Curfew Home Detention Curfew (HDC) is a detention scheme in the United Kingdom whereby fixed-term offenders serving between three months and four years in prison may be released between 15 days and four and a half months (depending on sentence length) ear ...
. Released prisoners under home detention are allowed out during curfew hours only for: * A wedding or funeral (service only) of a close relative * A job interview * Acting as a witness in court * Emergencies. Additionally, electronic monitoring may be used for those subject to a curfew given under the Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Act 2011 (previously known as a control order under the
Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 The Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 (c 2) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, intended to deal with the Law Lords' ruling of 16 December 2004 that the detention without trial of eight foreigners (known as the 'Belmarsh 8') at H ...
) Since electronically monitored curfews were rolled out throughout England and Wales their use has increased sharply, from 9,000 cases in 1999–2000 to 53,000 in 2004–05. In 2004–05, the Home Office spent £102.3 million on the electronic monitoring of curfews and electronically monitored curfews are considered cheaper than custody. Typically, offenders are fitted with an electronic tag around their ankle which sends a regular signal to a receiver unit installed in their home. Some systems are connected to a
landline A landline (land line, land-line, main line, home phone, fixed-line, and wireline) is a telephone connection that uses metal wires or optical fiber telephone line for transmission, as distinguished from a mobile cellular network, which us ...
in the case where
GSM The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a standard developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) to describe the protocols for second-generation ( 2G) digital cellular networks used by mobile devices such ...
is not available, whilst most arrangements utilize the mobile phone system to communicate with the monitoring company. If the tag is not functioning or within range of the base station during curfew hours, or if the base is disconnected from the power supply, or the base station is moved then the monitoring company are alerted, who in turn, notify the appropriate authority such as the police, the
National Probation Service The Probation Service (formerly the National Probation Service) for England and Wales is a statutory criminal justice service, mainly responsible for the supervision of offenders in the community and the provision of reports to the criminal cour ...
or the prison the person was released from. In 2012, the Policy Exchange think tank examined the use of electronic monitoring in England and Wales and made comparisons with technologies and models seen in other jurisdictions, particularly the United States. The report was critical of the Ministry of Justice's model of a fully privatized service - which gave little scope for police or probation services to make use of electronic monitoring. The report, Future of Corrections, also criticized the cost of the service, highlighting an apparent differential between what the UK taxpayer was charged and what could be found in the United States. Subsequently, there were a number of scandals in relation to electronic monitoring in England and Wales, with a criminal investigation opened by the Serious Fraud Office into the activities of Serco and G4S. As a result of the investigation, Serco agreed to repay £68.5 million to the taxpayer and G4S agreed to repay £109 million. The duopoly were subsequently stripped of their contract, with Capita taking over the contract. In 2017, another criminal investigation saw police make a number of arrests in relation to allegations that at least 32 criminals on tag had paid up to £400 to Capita employees in order to have 'loose' tags fitted, allowing them to remove their tags. The monitoring of sex offenders via electronic tagging is currently in debate due to certain rights offenders have in England and Wales. Electronic tagging has begun being used on psychiatric patients, prompting concern from mental health advocates who state that the practice is demeaning. In June 2022, the British Home Office announced a one-year pilot to track migrants who arrived on small boats on "dangerous and unnecessary routes" with GPS devices that will help "maintain regular contact" and more "effectively process their claims".


Australia and New Zealand

In
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...
and
New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island coun ...
existing law permits the use of electronic monitoring as condition for bail, probation or parole. But, according to the 2004 ''Standard Guidelines for Corrections in Australia'' the surveillance must be proportionate to the risk of re-offense. It is also required that, the surveillance of the offender is minimally intrusive for other people who live at the premises. Electronic tagging of a person is part of different electronic monitoring systems in Australia. Correctional agency statistics are collected in Australia for so called "restricted movement orders". In South Australia, a drive-by facility allows the monitorer to drive past a building in which the tagged person is supposed to be. In New Zealand, the electronic tagging of offenders began 1999, when home detention could be imposed instead of imprisonment.


Brazil

In August 2010, Brazil awarded a GPS Offender Monitoring contract to kick start its monitoring of offenders and management of the Brazilian governments early release programmeSecureAlert Signs First-Ever GPS Offender Monitoring Contract in Brazil
TMCnet, 23 August 2010


South Africa

Electronic monitoring as a pilot project was started in March 2012, involving 150 offenders, mostly prisoners serving life terms. The project was rolled out to reduce the South Africa's prison population. It consequently would also reduce the taxpayer's burden on correctional facilities.Dept. of Correctional services: Rep of South Africa, South Africa's first ever Electronic of a Remand Detainee, 15/04/2014. South Africa locks up more people than any other country on the continent.


See also

* Automatic vehicle location * Decarceration in the United States * Electronic monitoring in the United States


References

{{Reflist Surveillance Punishments