ABSTRACT
This chapter is about the future use of electronic supervision tools by community supervision agencies. There is a push for community supervision to alleviate the negative consequences associated with mass incarceration (i.e., overcrowding) by releasing inmates early and/or sentencing more people to probation instead of incarceration. If electronic monitoring is going to be used, then policies and research should identify how this component contributes to supervision goals, meets the purposes of sentencing, and adheres to ethical principles. Social science researchers need to be proactive in their study of technological developments because we are on the cusp of a technological boom that is likely to make possible an assortment of unimaginable devices to incorporate into supervision. I suggest that criminologists focus on how electronic technologies contribute to the goals of supervision, purposes of sentencing, and ethical forms of punishment. A fruitful research agenda needs to understand potential concerns including unintended negative consequences, profit motives from companies, and misuse of these technologies more generally. The criminological field should develop guidelines and standards for the use of technologies as forms of punishment.
