Pretrial Electronic Monitoring and Control of Black Lives: An Empirical Study on Surveillance and Its Impacts on Sociabilities in the City of Salvador
Pretrial electronic monitoring. Racism. Punitive system. Gift. Over-stigma
This work investigates the pretrial electronic monitoring of Black individuals in Salvador, Bahia. Starting from legislative and academic discourses regarding the implementation of electronic ankle monitors, it discusses how the reality of offenders is affected by this control device. The centrality of the racial issue is adopted as a premise for the criminological approach to how the punitive system expresses itself through this technological tool. The methodological strategy was constructed to enhance the understanding of the reality of a group of 10 people, seeking to challenge institutionalized discourses surrounding pretrial electronic monitoring. An empirical research with a qualitative bias was chosen, employing the technique of data collection from judicial records and semi-structured interviews. Initially, 43 judicial cases of individuals matching the defined profile for the study were examined; subsequently, the criminal procedures of the 10 interviewed individuals were analyzed, selecting information that allowed access to the contours of punitive control exercised over them, especially regarding the content of judicial decisions imposing electronic monitoring. The reading of judicial orders decreeing the ankle monitor evoked the category of "gift," given the perception that monitored freedom is understood as a benefit granted to the person, who would otherwise be sent to traditional prison. The interviews were conducted to enhance listening about these individuals' sociability, enabling the understanding of how racism permeates their social interactions (community, family, and work) and limits of freedom. It was found that the electronic ankle monitor functions as an over-stigma, capable of intensifying the multiple forms of restriction on Black living, causing the diminishment of these individuals' freedom.