From an Integrated to a Stand Alone Order: The Story of Electronic Monitoring in Belgium

• In Event: Electronic Monitoring in Europe

Abstract

Electronic monitoring (EM) was introduced nationwide in Belgium in 2000 and has since then been promoted as being able to meet different penological, systemic and political goals. Today, electronic monitoring is being applied in Belgium as an alternative for remand imprisonment, as a way to execute prison sentences of up to three years and as a back-door strategy for prison sentences of more than three years. Where electronic monitoring was initially introduced as a rehabilitative alternative for imprisonment, from 2006 on it became primarily an all-round solution for the longstanding problem of an ever-increasing prison population and prison overcrowding. Under the pressure of having to electronically monitor an increasing number of persons, the initial rehabilitative narrative and individualized practice of electronic monitoring has been transformed into a merely controlling and retributive standardized measure, stripped of human supervision and support for the biggest group of persons under EM. Managerial adaptation strategies and fiscal constraints dominate the operation of EM in Belgium today. In this presentation we will further argue that the use and operation of EM cannot be understood without taking political and wider penal policy issues into account.

Author

• Kristel Beyens, Vrije Universiteit Brussel