Understanding e-carceration : electronic monitoring, the surveillance state, and the future of mass incarceration

A riveting primer on the growing trend of surveillance, monitoring, and control that is extending our prison system beyond physical walls and into a dark future--by the prize-winning author of Understanding Mass Incarceration "James Kilgore is one of my favorite commentators regarding the phenomenon of mass incarceration and the necessity of pursuing truly transformative change." --Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow During the last decade, as consensus has grown that mass incarceration is morally reprehensible, financially unsustainable, and politically unviable, criminal justice reforms that release prisoners from actual prisons have been nearly universally embraced. But as educator, author, and formerly incarcerated activist James Kilgore brilliantly exposes, these reforms are largely a part of the phenomenon of e-carceration--the slow, sinister way that technological interventions are expanding to increasingly and creatively deprive justice-involved people and other marginalized groups of their freedoms, all in the name of ending mass incarceration. People subject to the constraints of e-carceration can be denied access to employment, housing, medical treatment, therapy, and even the opportunity to spend time with their families. The harm caused by data harvesting, which involves the collection and storage of data, has no time boundaries. Certain e-carceration technologies, like facial recognition, persist even without the knowledge of their subjects. And sometimes, people may be accidentally complicit in the intensification of their own e-carceration by adding data and information to databases used to predict behavior and authorize official responses. In this searing and powerful work, Kilgore examines the dark side of this evolution of mass incarceration, from the simple analog-like ankle shackle to the great corporate data clouds in the sky--and offers a way forward. A riveting primer on the growing trend of surveillance, monitoring, and control that is extending our prison system beyond physical walls and into a dark future--by the prize-winning author of Understanding Mass Incarceration "James Kilgore is one of my favorite commentators regarding the phenomenon of mass incarceration and the necessity of pursuing truly transformative change." --Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow In the last decade, as the critique of mass incarceration has grown more powerful, many reformers have embraced changes that release people from prisons and jails. As educator, author, and activist James Kilgore brilliantly shows, these rapidly spreading reforms largely fall under the heading of "e-carceration"--a range of punitive technological interventions, from ankle monitors to facial recognition apps, that deprive people of their liberty, all in the name of ending mass incarceration. E-carceration can block people's access to employment, housing, healthcare, and even the chance to spend time with loved ones. Many of these technologies gather data that lands in corporate and government databases and may lead to further punishment or the marketing of their data to Big Tech. This riveting primer on the world of techno-punishment comes from the author of the National Book Award-winning Understanding Mass Incarceration . Himself a survivor of prison and e-carceration, Kilgore captures the breadth and complexity of these technologies and offers inspiring ideas on how to resist. **A riveting primer on the growing trend of surveillance, monitoring, and control that is extending our prison system beyond physical walls and into a dark future—by the prize-winning author of __Understanding Mass Incarceration__** **“James Kilgore is one of my favorite commentators regarding the phenomenon of mass incarceration and the necessity of pursuing truly transformative change.” —Michelle Alexander, author of __The New Jim Crow__** In the last decade, as the critique of mass incarceration has grown more powerful, many reformers have embraced changes that release people from prisons and jails. As educator, author, and activist James Kilgore brilliantly shows, these rapidly spreading reforms largely fall under the heading of “e-carceration”—a range of punitive technological interventions, from ankle monitors to facial recognition apps, that deprive people of their liberty, all in the name of ending mass incarceration. E-carceration can block people’s access to employment, housing, healthcare, and even the chance to spend time with loved ones. Many of these technologies gather data that lands in corporate and government databases and may lead to further punishment or the marketing of their data to Big Tech. This riveting primer on the world of techno-punishment comes from the author of award–winning __Understanding Mass Incarceration__. Himself a survivor of prison and e-carceration, Kilgore captures the breadth and complexity of these technologies and offers inspiring ideas on how to resist. 1 INTRODUCTION 2 WHAT I S E-CARCERATION? 3 MONITORING: BORN IN THE PUNISHMENT PARADIGM 4 BUILDING THE MYTH OF ELECTRONIC MONITORING: NOT A “SHRED OF DATA” 5 THE “WAYWARD TECHNOLOGY”: BUSTING THE MYTH OF ELECTRONIC MONITORING 6 IMMIGRATION AND ELECTRONIC MONITORING: SMARTLINKS AND GEO-FENCES 7 THE PANDEMIC AND THE GROWTH OF E-CARCERATION 8 CAMDEN, N J, AND THE “SILICON VALLEY WAY OF DOING POLICING” 9 E-CARCERATION, SETTLER COLONIALISM, AND THE OPEN-AIR PRISON 10 DATA PROFITEERING FROM THE BODIES OF THE CRIMINALIZED 11 ABOLITION AND CHALLENGING E-CARCERATION NOTES INDEX This books examines the range of punitive technological interventions, from ankle monitors to facial recognition apps, that deprive people of their liberty, all in the name of ending mass incarceration. E-carceration can block people's access to employment, housing, healthcare, and even the chance to spend time with loved ones. Many of these technologies gather data that lands in corporate and government databases. -- Provided by publisher