Would You Like an Ankle Bracelet With That?: Winners and Losers in Electronic Monitoring

I spent a year on an ankle bracelet as a condition of my parole. For me and for most of the 150,000 to 200,000 people who go through each day with this technology strapped to their ankles, claims that electronic monitoring as a sort of panacea for the problems in our prison system—a low-cost, technologically smart way to ameliorate state budget crises, ensure public safety, and give “criminals” a chance to put their life back together.

I’m at least in agreement with half of that win-win scenario. An increase in the use of EM will produce some winners. Let’s take, for example, BI Incorporated, the largest provider of ankle bracelets and monitoring programs in the United States. In 2009, BI signed a five-year contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for $372 million to provide ankle bracelets for 27,000 people awaiting immigration hearings. Clearly, a winner in this game.

What I’m not so sure about is the other side of the equation, those who actually walk around with that black box on their leg, apart from the aforementioned stars. For Paris and Lindsay, GPS jewelry provides a get-out-of-jail-free ticket, not counting the lawyers’ fees, of course. But those are the rich and famous. They’re different from the rest of us—they have more money.