Surveillance as Casework Article Essay To Prepare: For this assignment, read first the Research Critique Guideline, then read the research article titled,

Surveillance as Casework Article Essay To Prepare: For this assignment, read first the Research Critique Guideline, then read the research article titled, “Surveillance as casework.” Paper Guidelines: Communication plan needs to be at minimum 2 pages with 3 referencesPaper is written in Double-SpaceFont size 12 & Times New Roman fontSection headers in APA formatAdditional Reference page at the end with APA citations Research Critique Guideline
To Prepare: For this assignment, read the attached research article titled, “Surveillance as casework.”
Paper Guidelines:
• Communication plan needs to be at minimum 2 pages with 3 references
• Paper is written in Double-Space
• Font size 12 & Times New Roman font
• Section headers in APA format
• Additional Reference page at the end with APA citations
Outline
Section headers, in APA format for each section below:
• Write a critique of the attached research study in which you:
o Evaluate the authors’ use of literature using the attached “Literature Checklist” as a guide.
o Evaluate the research problem using the attached “Problem Statement Checklist” as a
guide.
o Explain what it means for a research study to be justified and grounded in literature; then,
explain what it means for a problem to be original using the attached “Litmus Test” as a
guide.
o Evaluate the authors’ use of literature using the attached “Literature Checklist” as a guide.
o Provide a summary/conclusion adequately closing the paper and finalizing your critiques of
the research article.
Journal: Crime, Law and Social Change
Surveillance as casework:
Supervising domestic violence defendants with GPS technology
Peter R. Ibarra
Oren M. Gur
Edna Erez
Abstract
Academic discussion about surveillance tends to emphasize its proliferation, ubiquity, and
impact on society, while neglecting to consider the continued relevance of traditional approaches
to human supervision, an oversight insofar as surveillance is organized through practices
embedded in justice system-based casework. Drawing from a multi-site study of pretrial
personnel utilizing global positioning systems (GPS) technology for domestic violence cases in
the U.S., a comparative analysis is offered to illustrate how the handling of a “problem
population” varies across community corrections agencies as they implement surveillance
regimes. In particular, the study finds that surveillance styles reflect whether an agency is
directed toward crime control and risk management, providing treatment and assistance, or
observing due process. These programmatic thrusts are expressed in how officers interact with
offenders as cases, both directly and remotely. In contrast to the ambient monitoring of
environments and populations through data-banking technologies, the interactive surveillance
styles described in the present study highlight the role of casework in surveillance.
Keywords:
Surveillance, casework, pretrial supervision, GPS, electronic monitoring, domestic violence,
criminal justice agencies.
———————-P. R. Ibarra (corresponding author) • O. M. Gur • E. Erez
Department of Criminology, Law and Justice, University of Illinois at Chicago
1007 W. Harrison St., BSB 4022 (M/C 141), Chicago, IL 60607, USA
E-mail address: pibarra@uic.edu
O. M. Gur
RUNNING HEAD: INTERACTIVE SURVEILLANCE
Department of Criminal Justice, Pennsylvania State University, Abington College, Abington, PA
19001, USA
Introduction
Surveillance has become pervasive as information systems that document people’s quotidian
activities have multiplied [49]. These systems collect steadily increasing streams of personal
information that are stored in unevenly regulated, coordinated, and accessible data banks, to be
tapped into on an “as needed” basis by market- and government-based actors. 1 The assembly and
retrieval of these digitized data reflect the institutionalization of surveillance as an ordinary and
“ubiquitous” feature of contemporary life [28]. Such ambient surveillance entails the kind of data
collection and information management that occurs routinely, silently, and unobtrusively when,
for example, visiting web sites, swiping ID cards upon entry to a secured facility, dialing
telephone numbers, having one’s image captured on closed-circuit television (CCTV), carrying
credit cards containing radio frequency (RF) ID tags, or using social media. 2
A number of academic disciplines consider surveillance an object of inquiry; of interest
to criminology is the penetration of surveillance technologies across all phases of the criminal
justice process. These developments reflect broader trends in the growth of the “surveillant
assemblage” [36], whereby surveillance has become increasingly democratized 3 and embedded,
i.e., “rhizomatic” ([36], p. 614, citing [18]). Key to understanding surveillance in United States
criminal justice contexts is the idea of the case, for the fact that a person is a case means that
surveillance becomes interactive, shaped less by its ubiquitous reach and more by the focused
processes that characterize, for example, supervision or investigation. Whereas ambient
surveillance is faceless, diffuse, and operates impersonally, interactive surveillance is
personified, focused, and pursued in response to a person’s status, identity, or actions. 4
1
These data banks need not be remotely located; “smart phones” provide veritable troves of
banked data (cf. [69]), for example.
2
Ambient surveillance emerges from the rise of ubiquitous computing and ambient intelligence
(cf. [83]), which essentially document in digitized form an increasing range of human traces
(“footprints”) and actions (current location, vehicular movements, economic transactions,
interpersonal contacts, online behavior, etc.) (cf. [70][81]). Ambient surveillance is distinguished
from mass surveillance in that the latter is directed by the state, whereas the former encompasses
both state- and market-based forms of surveillance.
3
Surveillance has become democratized as people increasingly have their lives and routine
activities recorded, documented, tracked, and rendered into searchable databases, including
socially powerful individuals who historically could use their status to shield themselves from
bureaucratic organizations that might seek to monitor them (see [36], p. 618).
4
Because it works “silently,” ambient surveillance can be ignored, forgotten, and taken-forgranted, or become the subject of folklore, rumor, and speculation, and hence the object of
collective action, such as when users of a smart phone application organize to protest changes in
a social media company’s “privacy” policies [43]. By contrast, interactive surveillance is
difficult to mobilize against politically insofar as those subject to it feel restricted in expressing
their rights (e.g., to liberty, privacy), are unaware of their status as a case, or are deemed
unsympathetic figures to “rally around.” Nevertheless, it is evident that—on a personal level—
resistance and sabotage may be practiced by those subjected to electronic surveillance.
1
RUNNING HEAD: INTERACTIVE SURVEILLANCE
Interactive surveillance is purposeful and directed, characterized by unique practices—often
including the use of face-to-face interaction—that yield information not necessarily digitized or
searchable on demand or by algorithm. Interactive surveillance entails, minimally, interaction
between a surveilling agent and an object of surveillance: a case. Rather than constituting a
bifurcated pairing, however, ambient and interactive surveillance can function symbiotically:
exemplifying “function creep” ([17], passim)[48](cf. [87]), i.e., the repurposing of technological
tools and systems, innovations adopted by justice institutions appropriate extant surveillant data
streams while also contributing to their growth.
Although electronic monitoring (EM) is a common basis for the surveillance of criminal
justice populations in the U.S., scholarly investigation has focused on evaluating EM’s impact on
various outcomes (e.g., desistance, compliance, recidivism) (e.g., [68][64][2]), rather than
documenting the surveillance processes it engenders. 5 The purpose of the current study is to
examine “styles of surveillance” among community corrections officers using EM, employing a
specific and comparative analysis (cf. [30]) of how the tools of surveillance are integrated into
local agendas and routines, variegated traditions and ideologies, and legal and extralegal
considerations associated with social control and rule enforcement. Specifically, we examine
how a “second generation” [52] EM technology—GPS—is implemented through interactive
surveillance with domestic violence (DV) defendants in three U.S. jurisdictions. GPS tracking is
an instructive technology for conceptualizing the distinction between interactive and ambient
surveillance, for it targets a specific group—a set of cases—rather than a general population, and
yet its constantly-banked data streams mimic the behavior of ambient forms.
The capabilities of technologies, including GPS tracking, do not describe or explain the
practice of surveillance, either in general or as conducted by the criminal justice “system” (cf.
[51]). Discussions of the “surveillance society” [50] often posit a unidimensionality to
technology-based surveillance that is not supported empirically. According to David Lyon:
Surveillance today is often thought of only in technological terms. Technologies are
indeed crucially important, but two important things must also be remembered: One,
‘human surveillance’ of a direct kind, unmediated by technology, still occurs and is often
yoked with more technological kinds. Two, technological systems themselves are neither
the cause nor the sum of what surveillance is today. We cannot simply read surveillance
consequences off the capacities of each new system ([50], p. 6).
Surveillance technology acquires its “effects” from how it is used, but surveillance and
technology are not coterminous. It is crucial to investigate how technologies are incorporated
into the practice of surveillance, and not assume that any given technology is implemented
identically by surveilling authorities or with the heterogeneous populations brought under their
purview. Paterson and Clamp [66] correctly note:
It is essential to understand surveillance technologies as social and policy constructs
where the function of the technology is determined by the environment in which it is
utilized and experienced by the public. Technology manifests itself in different forms in
different socio-political and cultural contexts. Therefore, new surveillance programmes
5
There has also been extensive work examining how offenders experience the condition of being
electronically monitored (e.g., [67][38][41][23]).
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RUNNING HEAD: INTERACTIVE SURVEILLANCE
must be understood as products of their environment; they are creations of the criminal
justice agencies which have developed them and the offenders/victims who interact with
the technology ([66], p. 53-4).
As new forms of technology appear, they are “constructed” as useful in responding to
“problems” [77][42] framed through local, instead of, or in addition to, national lenses, and
incorporated into pre-existing justice infrastructures. In the current case, EM technology was
adopted by courts’ pretrial services programs as a way of ameliorating a “problem” that prior
means had been unable to effectively address: keeping DV victims “safe” from their alleged
abusers pending adjudication and disposition of a criminal case. Yet, as illustrated below,
surveillance technology has been implemented dissimilarly across jurisdictions.
We argue for a view of surveillance as casework (cf. [74]) embedded within interactive
processes emerging from defendant-focused regimes of social control. The ends of social control
shape the styles of casework, and hence how surveillance is mobilized and experienced.
Accordingly, the means and ends of social control should be identified in interpreting the
organization and practice of surveillance. Characteristic styles of agency practice vary,
highlighting the importance of describing and analyzing surveillant technologies in context. GPS
tracking is not simply a mechanism for enforcing curfew and mobility restrictions on DV
defendants; rather, its compliance-focused agenda is incorporated into the practice of interactive
surveillance by pretrial officers who use GPS in accordance with the traditions in which they
have been trained, as favored by the agencies where they are employed. These traditions animate
and legitimize the varying approaches to, or “styles” of, interactive surveillance that are observed
in action. Because these styles reflect varying methods and philosophies of community
corrections, we first address how supervision has been conceptualized in the literature and
review prior research on supervision utilizing EM technology, before examining interactive
surveillance in three U.S.-based GPS for DV pretrial programs.
Literature review
Supervision styles and penological discourse
EM has been increasingly incorporated as a tool for managing the risks posed by offenders on
conditional release, including those accused of DV. The use of partially incapacitative ([35], p.
48), conditional release during the pretrial period in the U.S. entails the creation of supervision
programs structured as “probation-like alternatives” ([35], p. 12), fashioned on a casework model
(e.g., [12], p. 31). 6 The nature of pretrial supervision can be understood by drawing from
concepts developed in the probation and parole literature, and by reference to currents in
penological discourse that direct or comment on the handling of offenders by the justice system.
Discussions of supervision style in the context of probation and parole have historically
centered on the extent to which an officer or agency is oriented toward “law enforcement” or
“rehabilitation.” For Glaser [31], parole supervision entails some mix of control and assistance,
the former including “surveillance” 7 of the offender, and the latter including practices
6
These pretrial supervision programs emerged out of the “second generation” bail reform
movements of the 1970s and 1980s ([34], p. 1556-8).
7
Glaser defines surveillance “as any act involving direct or indirect observation of the parolees’
activities to ascertain that they conform to supervision rules” ([31], p. 432).
3
RUNNING HEAD: INTERACTIVE SURVEILLANCE
traditionally viewed as forms of “casework” [54](cf. [3]). Similarly, for Klockars, probation
officer styles of supervision are defined by whether they are oriented toward casework; in the
typology he offers, only “synthetic” officers balance the “law enforcer” and “therapeutic agent”
orientations ([46], p. 550-1)(cf. [57]), albeit not without difficulty. Accounting for the
importance of agency culture, Clear and Latessa demonstrate how a given agency’s
“organizational philosophy” influences officers’ handling of ill-fitting “expectations” ([11], p.
452)—stemming from role conflict associated with the treatment versus control distinction (cf.
[1])—whereby officers’ use of discretion reflects agency imperatives, rather than individual
preferences.
Drawing from and synthesizing the analyses of such writers as Foucault, Feeley and
Simon, Garland, and Deleuze, Nellis [58] has identified “three inter-connected sets of
[penological] discourses” ([15], p. 79): “managerial-surveillant,” “punitive-repressive,” and
“humanistic-rehabilitative” ([58], p. 178). These discourses correspond with and ground
distinctive practices and emphases—some influential at certain points while others fall out of
favor—and hence are pertinent to understanding approaches observed at criminal justice
agencies. The broad adoption of EM coalesced with the ascendance of managerial-surveillant
discourse, the “new penology” (cf. [26][9]), and the redirection of community corrections toward
reducing dangers that offender populations pose for the public, rather than their rehabilitation [7]
(cf. [12]). Investigating the influence of “actuarialism,” Lynch’s [48] ethnographic study
describes how, despite efforts by “regional and statewide managers” (p. 857) in California to
organize parole practice in ways consonant with new penological emphases (e.g., handling of
offenders in terms of their risk classification and “case plan”), officers approach supervision
through traditional investigative techniques, conversational stratagems, and intuition gained
during face-to-face interaction to determine who merits treatment as “dangerous.” Robinson [71]
found that officers in England and Wales are “reluctant to forgo the traditional ‘relational basis’
of probation practice” (p. 14), viewing risk rationalization schemes as contrary to the “culture” in
which they were trained. Lynch, Robinson, and others (e.g., [7]) highlight the continued
importance of officers’ front-line practices and professional training and tradition,
notwithstanding the penological discourses that may be promoted by others standing at some
remove (e.g., management, policy makers, the public, social theorists).
Surveillance with electronic monitoring
Initially, upon EM’s emergence, scholars speculated about its implications for probation
[27][44][25][14] and its welfarist traditions (cf. [80])—at times with ominous undertones (see
[27]). Thus, Erwin [25] suggested that EM might lead to “a fascination with the technologies of
enforcement” ([25], p. 66), supplanting probation’s traditional focus on constructively changing
individuals. The “complex analysis required of the treatment model” ([14], p. 408)—reliant on
“higher-order skills (interpersonal communications, personality assessment, diagnostic protocols,
crisis intervention, substance abuse assessment and referral)” (p. 408)—would be displaced,
cementing the “secondary” position of the rehabilitative model in relation to control ([14], p.
407, citing [10]). The “panacea” of EM ([14], p. 399; cf. [52]) threatened to promote supervision
styles more reliant on the mechanical collection of “facts”—as emphasized by EM’s capacity to
regularly bank and afford access to quantified information about clients—and less on casework
and human interaction. EM promised to reduce “anxiety and guesswork endemic to the casework
approach” ([14], p. 408) in favor of a surveillance-based regime whose officers have
4
RUNNING HEAD: INTERACTIVE SURVEILLANCE
“responsibilities akin to those of a clerk/technician” ([14], p. 408).
While studies of how officers monitor offenders with EM have been scant, research from
England and Wales [39][45][65] and the U.S. [40] highlights the importance of the institutional
context within which EM-based surveillance is practiced. EM in England and Wales is
predominantly administered by a mixture of privately contracted monitoring companies (e.g.,
G4S, Serco), sometimes with the involvement of state-sponsored justice agencies (i.e., the
English Probation Service) (cf. [32]); in the U.S. it is typically 8 embedded within traditional
criminal justice professions operating at local, state, and federal levels. Probation staff and
sheriff’s deputies are justice professionals, rather than technicians of a private company: the
former are fully nested within agencies functioning under state mandate (e.g., courts, police
departments, and community corrections), providing sources of training, tradition, career
advancement, job security, fraternity, professional identity, and infrastructure (e.g., sworn law
enforcement as professional peers or colleagues) not readily available to the latter, i.e., those
contracted as private-sector employees (see [39], p. 62). 9
The England and Wales-based research examines how privately contracted field
monitoring officers (FMOs) 10 surveil offenders while demonstrating an abiding concern for the
“bottom line.” “The work undertaken by a FMO in principal is the same nationwide” ([45], p.
582; cf. [32]): They are focused on observing the terms of…
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