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‘The Treasure Island of the EM Market’: State-Commercial Collaboration and Electronic Monitoring in England and Wales

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The Private Sector and Criminal Justice

Abstract

This chapter explores the emergence of electric monitoring (EM) as a set of key contemporary criminal justice technologies, the development and implementation of which is increasingly driven by the private sector. The chapter contends that the UK Government’s anticipated ‘transformation’ of EM for offenders is itself an expression of both the ‘digital by default’ agenda and of their ideologically constructed notion of ‘commercial common sense’. It argues that expanding EM is also, at a still deeper level, a manifestation in the correctional sphere of the communication, locatability and data management technologies that have become integral to contemporary neo-liberalism, whose necessity is now as likely to be justified by appeal to commercial as penal rationales.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    I owe this telling phrase to an experienced business person in the EM world, who wishes to remain anonymous.

  2. 2.

    South Korea and a number of Latin American countries, notably Columbia, have moved towards the large-scale use of GPS tracking without ever having established RF monitoring, or indeed, in some instances, a Probation Service. Transformational and important as this is, it is not the same as the ‘disruptive innovation’ referred to here, because there were not the incumbent dominant players in the penal field to challenge and sideline. New Zealand has attempted a move towards mass GPS tracking, away from established RF EM, but this is as yet undocumented.

  3. 3.

    Two representatives of potential bidders for the third contract, initially uncertain of its commercial viability, separately told me that in private meetings at the Ministry of Justice in 2013, officials tantalised them with a figure of ‘about 75,000 per day’ as the anticipated, eventual size of the GPS market. Tipped off by Napo, an associate business editor at The Independent, phoned the Ministry of Justice media office to confirm the 75,000 per day figure, which they did—only to withdraw it a day later.

  4. 4.

    Just Solutions International was formally set up under Chris Grayling in 2014 to enable NOMS to sell its expertise in prison design and building, and offender management—including ‘cutting-edge electronic monitoring’—although trading had been taking place since 2012. After cancelling a £5.9m contract to build a prison in Saudi Arabia, new Justice Minister Michael Gove closed it down in September 2015. A retrospective NAO (2016) enquiry reported that it had been badly set up and unprofitable.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK

    Mike Nellis

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  1. Mike Nellis
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Law, University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom

    Anthea Hucklesby

  2. School of Law, University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom

    Stuart Lister

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Nellis, M. (2018). ‘The Treasure Island of the EM Market’: State-Commercial Collaboration and Electronic Monitoring in England and Wales. In: Hucklesby, A., Lister, S. (eds) The Private Sector and Criminal Justice. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-37064-8_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-37064-8_9

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