The Invisible Implications of Techno-Optimism of Electronic Monitoring in Portugal

Abstract

In recent years, offenders' supervision has emerged as a new facet of the penal landscape in most Western countries, growing in scale, reach and scope. In Portugal, in addition to community sanctions and prison sentences, electronic monitoring stands out as a way of monitoring offenders. This penal instrument is associated with high expectations created by political discourses and media messages that portray electronic monitoring as an instrument that enables the reduction of overcrowding and pressure of the prison system and its costs. In addition, it is also argued that, by maintaining offenders in the community, electronic monitoring also favours the maintenance of social ties, avoids the potential criminogenic effects of prison, and facilitates resocialisation processes. In this article, drawing inspiration from social studies of science and technology and surveillance studies, I explore the invisible implications of techno-optimism of electronic monitoring in Portugal. Through documentary analysis, based on parliamentary hearings, media pieces, opinion articles, official reports, and scientific literature, I reflect upon how techno-optimism makes the expansion of the penal sphere invisible. Moreover, techno-optimism about electronic monitoring in Portugal also implies the co-optation of family in the criminal sphere and the transmutation of the domestic space into a confinement space. Regarding domestic violence, techo-optimism around electronic monitoring also contributes to the characterisation of this social phenomenon as having a technoscientific solution, thus narrowing the public debate on its prevention.