Electronic monitoring is interesting technology but has no real value in community corrections - Research Paper Example

Crowe, Sydney, Bancroft, and Lawrence (2002) identify that electronic monitoring and the systems designed to support this surveillance effort do not provide the necessary community corrections due to media representation of these systems to the general public. The authors offer an interesting case study of electronic monitoring in the Northeast U.S. in which the ratio of re-arrest for criminal activities was significantly lower for monitored offenders than those who were not monitored electronically.

However, media involvement became a community-wide and organization-wide problem when one participant in the electronic monitoring program committed manslaughter during the period when they were being supervised. Media influence seemed to make the community lose faith in electronic monitoring and even served to scrap a successful electronic monitoring program in the process. This particular case study and acknowledgement of media influence causing problems with these systems tends to show that media involvement can make these programs unsuccessful even if they are providing superior statistical results related to re-arrest.

Because media is a large part of the American culture, influencing everything from fashion to politics, how the community reacts to different media portrayal of corrections programs such as electronic monitoring will greatly impact their success. This represents that electronic monitoring may have unintended social forces, such as media and community expectations, which can greatly contribute to failure. Since in the case study negative media ended the program, then many communities may find that their own correction system is at risk in the event that offenders conduct further criminal behavior while on the monitoring system and social outcry is created that is spread by global media.

There is also evidence that some