ABSTRACT
This chapter will consider the emergence of the electronic monitoring (EM) of offenders as an instance of penal innovation-a relatively new way of controlling (and punishing) offenders in the community-that has been taken up in some degree (either as localized experiments or fully national schemes) in approximately 25 countries over the last 25 years. The United States, British Columbia, Australia, and Singapore were the early adopters. England and Wales briefly experimented with it in 1989/1990, but Sweden was the first European county to develop a national scheme in 1996. Most European countries now make use of it (Mayer, Haverkamp, & Levy, 2000). Poland is committed to it; Russia (at least Moscow) is establishing it. Mexico, Argentina, and Hong Kong have schemes; and at least one African country is showing interest. Although there is (as yet?) no country in which EM constitutes the dominant approach to community supervision, considered globally
it is not an insignificant development. Indeed, the political and commercial momentum behind it shows no sign of waning. This chapter seeks to explain-a little schematically, paying only limited attention to the nuanced circumstances of its adoption in different countries-how and why this innovation has come about and to suggest how it may evolve in the future. It will be a little speculative-and more focused on Europe than the United Statesalthough it is grounded in things that are already happening but that are still improperly understood.
