Surveillance Technologies and the Carceral State: Mapping the Delineations of Control and Exclusion

• In Event: Critical Carceral Studies in Action: Geographies, Discourses, and Technologies

Abstract

The goal of this paper is twofold: First, to map the delineations of control and exclusion via GPS surveillance technologies used by the U.S. Criminal Justice System. Second, to understand a range of actors’ experiences with a modern-day penal environment that prioritizes control and exclusion via GPS surveillance ex post facto. What will be argued is that there is an incongruity between conventional explanations of crime control and the realities of current penal practices. A closer look at the use of GPS surveillance technologies, including how they operate and the rhetoric used to justify them, will highlight an ideological discourse that legitimizes a set of practices that might otherwise seem inhuman appear to be compulsory. Indeed, what we find is a system that is/continues to be self-defeating and callous, where marginalized citizens are further targeted for control and exclusion via criminal justice policies that only exacerbate their status post incarceration. Indeed, the carceral state not only virtually guarantees repeated criminal conduct, but in so doing, it also labels individuals as less than human thus eligible for sanctions that might otherwise seem illegitimate. What is needed, then, is a widespread and long-term commitment to pursuing alternative approaches.

Author

• Emily Troshynski, University of Nevada, Las Vegas