NCJ Number
136962
Journal
Canadian Journal of Criminology Volume: 34 Issue: 2 Dated: (April 1992) Pages: 161-180
Date Published
1992
Length
20 pages
Annotation
This paper examines recent efforts to develop and implement house arrest with electronic monitoring in British Columbia, Canada with particular reference to the phenomenon of net widening.
Abstract
Electronic monitoring represents an intermediate punishment program in which surveillance, punishment, and control are primary program objectives. The controlee is given more freedom than prison, but the experience of house arrest and intensive probation supervision is more onerous than a simple probation term in which supervision tends to be more infrequent and based on therapeutic intervention models. In house arrest with electronic monitoring, the primary concern is that of surveillance/policing or ensuring that the offender adheres to prescribed program rules. The concept of net widening has two dimensions, offender net widening and correctional personnel or systemic net widening. Offender net widening is offender-focused inasmuch as attention is directed to assessing whether an offender processing organization is bringing more offenders into the correctional system or whether the alternative sanction is being used to supplement existing sanctions. Correctional personnel or systemic net widening is based on an assessment of budgetary expenditures and staffing increases. Evidence obtained from an evaluation of British Columbia's electronic monitoring system suggests that community-based intermediate punishment programs in general and electronic monitoring in particular produce systemic expansion, otherwise referred to as widening the network of social control. 45 references and 4 notes (Author abstract modified)