The carceral state beyond bars: Pretrial surveillance as a social determinant of health

• In Event: Expanding Carcerality

Abstract

In recent years, criminal legal reform has led to significant changes at the pretrial stage, including the use of risk algorithms, the requirement for bonds to be affordable, and the abolition of money bond. While these reforms have decreased the number of people detained pretrial, they have subsequently increased the number of individuals subjected to pretrial surveillance, such as electronic monitoring (EM). Additionally, while the detrimental health effects of incarceration, stop-and-frisk, and other policing tactics are well-documented, the impact of pretrial surveillance remains relatively underexplored. With hundreds of thousands of people experiencing pretrial release at any given time—outnumbering those eventually incarcerated—pretrial surveillance represents a significant, yet understudied, social determinant of health. This paper fills this gap by examining the impact of pretrial surveillance on health, specifically through the case of EM. Using 38 interviews with people on pretrial EM, we demonstrate two mechanisms through which EM impacts health. First, participants note the psychological toll of being under constant surveillance. Second, participants experience limited access to healthcare services due to EM mobility restrictions. With these findings, we underscore the need to examine reforms critically to ensure they do not perpetuate or expand the very harms they seek to eliminate.

Authors

• Erin Eife, George Mason University

• Brian Tuohy, Temple University