Comparing electronic monitoring regimes: Length, breadth, depth and weight equals tightness
| Date | 01 January 2021 |
| Author | Anthea Hucklesby,Kristel Beyens,Miranda Boone |
| Published date | 01 January 2021 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1462474520915753 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Comparing electronic
monitoring regimes:
Length, breadth, depth
and weight equals
tightness
Anthea Hucklesby
University of Leeds, UK
Kristel Beyens
Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
Miranda Boone
University of Leiden, The Netherlands
Abstract
This paper compares the use of electronic monitoring in three European jurisdi ctions –
Belgium, England and Wales 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 electronic monitoring. This
paper transforms Crewe’s concept of ‘tightness’ from a dimension of weight to encom-
pass the overlapping elements of length, breadth, depth and weight to provide a frame-
work for analysing how electronic monitoring regimes are designed to disrupt the lives
of monitored individuals. Electronic monitoring 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.
Keywords
community sanctions, comparative penology, electronic monitoring, punitiveness,
tightness
Corresponding author:
Anthea Hucklesby, School of Law, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK.
Email: A.L.Hucklesby@leeds.ac.uk
Punishment & Society
2021, Vol. 23(1) 88–106
!The Author(s) 2020
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/1462474520915753
journals.sagepub.com/home/pun
Introduction
Traditionally, the use of penal measures in different countries has been compared
using imprisonment rates (Walmsley, 2018). Imprisonment rates are often used as
a proxy measure for punitiveness despite valid criticisms of this approach
(Cavadino and Dignan, 2006; Crewe, 2015; Matthews, 2005; Pease, 1994).
However, the widespread use of community sanctions and measures,
1
including
electronic monitoring (EM), means that this approach is misleading (Aebi et al.,
2019; McNeill and Beyens, 2013). Significantly more individuals are subject to
community sanctions than imprisonment in Europe (1.8 million compared with
1.23 million respectively in 2018) (Aebi and Tiago, 2019; Aebi et al., 2019); the
pattern of use of community sanctions across Europe differs from imprisonment
(Aebi et al., 2019); and statistics on the use of community sanctions are less reliable
than imprisonment data (Aebi et al., 2015). Consequently, imprisonment rates, at
best, provide only a partial picture of a country’s approach to punishment and its
relative punitiveness.
Rates have also been used to compare the deployment of community sanctions
in different jurisdictions (Aebi et al., 2019). But this methodology does not take
account of the range of community sanctions which are available, differences in the
way in which sanctions are executed or important qualitative differences in
community sanction regimes (McNeill and Beyens, 2013). This paper goes
beyond the measurement of rates to compare one type of community sanction,
EM, in three European jurisdictions – Belgium, England and Wales
2
and the
Netherlands – using qualitative data. It demonstrates that whilst measuring
absolute numbers and rates of use places England on top of the punitiveness
scale, taking account of a broader range of factors relating to EM regimes
paints a different and more complex picture. The analysis highlights the need to
look beyond rates of use of EM and community sanctions more broadly (and
arguably prison too) in order to compare sanctions within and between countries,
especially if these result in assessments of ‘punitiveness’.
A diverse range of technologies are encompassed by the term of ‘electronic
monitoring’. This paper focuses on the use on wearable location monitoring
technologies used to monitor the presence of individuals in particular places
and/or inclusion/exclusion zones or track wearers’ movements in real time or
retrospectively by criminal justice systems. EM is available in nearly every country
and is used at three stages of the criminal justice process – pre-trial, sentencing and
post-release – as a standalone measure or to monitor compliance with other
conditions. EM is already an important penal measure, and recent research
suggests it will continue to grow and its prominence will increase, thereby
making a significant contribution to the repertoire of penal sanctions in the
future (Hucklesby et al., 2016).
The scale of EM use in the three jurisdictions studied in this paper is
very different, although they all use EM across the criminal justice process. In
terms of absolute numbers, England is one of the highest users of EM in Europe.
Hucklesby et al. 89
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