About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

8 Just. Q. 399 (1991)
Critique: No Soul in the New Machine: Technofallacies in the Electronic Monitoring Movement

handle is hein.journals/jquart8 and id is 409 raw text is: C [ QUE: NO SOUL IN THE NEW MACHHNE: TECHNOFALLACIES IN THE ELEVTRONIC MONITORING MOVEMENT* RONALD CORBETr Massachusetts Department of Probation GARY T. MARX Massachusetts Institute of Technology 'it's a remarkable piece of apparatus. Opening line, The Penal Colony, by Franz Kafka Since its legendary inception in the mind of a New Mexico judge inspired by Spiderman comics, the use of electronic monitor- ing as a correctional tool has grown in a manner most often de- scribed as explosive (U.S. Dept. of Justice 1990). From very isolated use in 1984, the use of electronic monitoring (hereafter EM) has expanded to at least 33 states (ACA 1989), with a three- fold increase during 1988 alone (Schmidt 1989). Although hardly a mature industry, EM has attracted a grow- ing number of manufacturers now totaling at least 14 (Tonry and Will 1989). For the last several years, exhibition areas at the an- nual conference of the American Probation and Parole Association have been occupied almost entirely by vendors of new technology, most of it EM equipment. Clearly, EM has arrived on the correctional scene and has drawn much attention. Significant research findings regarding its impact recently have begun to come in. These studies have inten- sified the debate about the proper place of EM in criminal justice. In this paper we locate EM in the context of broader societal de- velopments regarding surveillance, and we argue that unfortu- nately it has fallen prey to a series of technofallacies which undermine practice. Viewing the current electronic monitoring frenzy from the perspective of several decades of observing and participating in the correctional process, we have Yogi Berra's sense that it's deja vu all over again, as yet another panacea is * An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Criminology, Baltimore, 1990. JUSTICE QUARTERLY, Vol. 8 No. 3, September 1991 © 1991 Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most