What we've seen historically is that mass incarceration is a good investment. That's why we have something called the prison industrial complex. What we're seeing now is the expansion of mass supervision, which includes electronic monitoring, but which includes a whole bunch of other so-called alternatives to incarceration that are both punitive and profitable.

Joining This Is Hell! today are Jacob Kang-Brown and James Gilgore to discuss the uses, abuses, and inequities of the use of wearable electronic monitoring devices in the US criminal legal system. Jacob co-authored the Vera Institute report, "People on Electronic Monitoring," with Jessica Zhang and Ari Kotler. James co-wrote the book, Understanding E-Carcertation: Electronic Monitoring, the Surveillance State, and the Future of Mass Incarceration, published by The New Press. A new "The Past Inside the Present" follows the interview.

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Guest

Jacob Kang-Brown

@jkangbrown

Jacob Kang-Brown is a senior research fellow with Vera’s Beyond Jails initiative, exploring the use of incarceration across the United States. At Vera, Jacob has conducted research on school discipline, status offense reform, policing and crime rates, hate crime, language access, jail and prison populations, charging and sentencing practices, electronic monitoring, and solitary confinement in prisons.

Guest

James Kilgore

@waazn1

James Kilgore is an activist, researcher, and writer based in Urbana, Illinois, where he has lived since paroling from prison in 2009. He is the director of the Challenging E-Carceration project at MediaJustice and the co-director of FirstFollowers Reentry Program in Champaign, Illinois. He is the author of five books, including Understanding E-Carceration and the award-winning Understanding Mass Incarceration (both from The New Press).

The Crime of Electronic Monitoring / Jacob Kang-Brown & James Kilgore

Jacob Kang-Brown

James Kilgore