The Social Costs of Pretrial, Court-Ordered Electronic Monitoring

The Issue 

In January 2020, the San Francisco District Attorney announced that his office would no longer impose cash bail; only in cases where defendants are deemed a “public safety risk” would they be held pretrial. Not surprisingly, SF's jail population has declined significantly since, by roughly 25 percentage points. However, as the number of pretrial detainees has declined, those court-ordered for pretrial, electronic monitoring has increased dramatically. San Francisco appears to have replaced surveillance in detention with surveillance in individuals' homes and communities.  

The logic underlying this shift toward electronic monitoring is that electronic monitoring imposes far fewer social costs to defendants than does pretrial detention. Still, critics charge that pretrial electronic monitoring can create many of the same harms as incarceration, including debt accumulation, job loss, family disruptions, and the like.

The Research Question 

Few have studied the costs of electronic monitoring from the perspective of those who are impacted by this increasingly popular form of pretrial surveillance. This study is an effort to better understand how pretrial, court-ordered electronic monitoring affects individuals’ lives. 

The Study 

Our research team is conducting in-depth phone interviews with participants to determine what impact electronic monitoring has on their physical and psychological well-being; employment and wages; housing stability; debt burden; ability to fulfill familial obligations; social capital access and mobilization; trust in legal authorities; and future penal system involvement, including new criminal complaints.