Have Home Detention Based Sanctions with GPS achieved their stated aims in the USA?

• In Event: Approaches to Offender Surveillance in Corrections

Abstract

In the United States of America (USA) the development of Home Detention Based Sanctions (HDBS) with Global Positioning Systems (GPS), was initiated by the expansion of sex offender post-release supervision laws in the mid-2000s. These surveillance-oriented sanctions are applied on serious sex offenders in order to increase public safety and/or divert them from imprisonment due to prohibitive costs of building and sustaining prisons. A qualitative analysis of the last decade of evaluative studies throughout the USA has indicated that HDBS with GPS have been operationally successful; that is, they have typically contained mandatory treatment provisions and as a result have experienced relatively low technical violation and reoffending rates. Studies assessing the ethical and political and stakeholder issues and dilemmas are however quite limited and further research to assess these issues is imperative. Nevertheless, the very positive results of the operation of HDBS with GPS in the USA have meant that the number of offenders on HDBS with GPS has been rapidly increasing in the USA. In addition, other nation states have followed the USA’s lead by experimenting and implementing their own HDBS with GPS.

Author

• Marietta Martinovic, RMIT University