Mike Nellis - Electronically Monitored Punishment: International and Critical Perspectives

EM emerged in Canada as a new technological element of the correctional environment, and only latterly became associated with sentencing. No single triggering event was responsible for the introduction of this form of monitoring it simply emerged as a result of correctional policy transfer from the United States. Unsurprisingly, in light of its proximity to the United States, Canada has adopted a number of penal reforms that originated south of the border. The introduction of EM was a natural consequence of the close links between Canadian and American correctional authorities. As will be seen in this chapter, the evolution of EM in Canada has been slow and sporadic. This may explain why it has not become a high-profile criminal justice issue. Rather, the Canadian public has become gradually aware that prisoners in several parts of the country were being subject to monitoring as part of their release programme from prison. Most Canadians will have become familiar with the concept of individual electronic surveillance from their widespread exposure to US news media.

Until recently, EM could therefore be described as a sleeper issue in the field of criminal justice in this country as a consequence of (1) its sporadic and limited application; (2) its familiarity from coverage in the US media; and (3) the absence of any high-profile case in which EM played a role. Although a great deal of research has been conducted into Canadian attitudes to criminal justice, it is surprising that to date no survey has explored public knowledge of, or reaction to EM. This fact alone attests to the low profile that this penal innovation has assumed in the Canadian context. Coverage of the issue in the Canadian news media has been subdued. While a spike in the frequency of stories occurred at the time EM was introduced in British Columbia (see below), there has been no dramatic story around the use of EM. When correctional issues appear in the media, newspaper headlines have focused on high-risk offenders, prison conditions, the right of prisoners to vote and the future of parole, rather than the EM of offenders in the community.

Canadas experience with EM has been shaped by the fact that responsibility for criminal justice is shared among the federal and ten provincial and three territorial governments. The federal level of government is responsible for the creation of criminal law, while the administration of justice, including police and court administration, falls within the jurisdiction of the provinces and territories under Sections 91 and 92 of the Constitution Act (1867). One consequence of this divided jurisdiction is that EM has not received a nation-wide roll-out as has been the case in other countries. Instead, a number of provinces have adopted the technology in response to institutional overcrowding while others continue to rely on human verification to ensure compliance with the conditions of parole or temporary absence from prison.

In large measure, the introduction of EM can be attributed to concern about rising prison populations across the country. Provincial and territorial admissions to custody increased by 22 per cent in the decade between 1980 and 1990 (Foran 1992). In 1996, a federal report on the corrections population growth reported that the provincial prison population had risen on average 12 per cent from 1989/1990 to 1994/1995 (Canada 1996). The increasing prison population was problematic from both an offender management and fiscal perspective and provoked a search for solutions. These remedies included the use of EM as an alternative to incarceration in order to reduce the number of prisoners through early release mechanisms such as parole. The application of EM in Canada has thus proceeded from corrections to sentencing from a tool to permit closer supervision of prisoners released early, to a means of surveillance for offenders who may well serve their entire sentence in the community.