Why We Should Use the Term “Electronic Monitoring” Instead of “Alternatives to Detention”
As I showed in my previous post, ICE’s Alternatives to Detention (ATD) program is not an alternative. The agency itself goes to great lengths to clarify this every time officials mention it, and the data on ATD does not support the idea that detention centers (or detention contracts) are at risk of withering away.
I am hardly the first one to make this argument.
In a report published by the Cardozo School of Law last year titled “Immigration Cyber Prisons: Ending the Use of Electronic Ankle Shackles”,1 the authors describe the phrase alternatives to detention as:
“A term misappropriated by city, state, and federal government agencies as well as private prison companies to refer to coercive programs that tag people with intrusive methods of surveillance, such as GPS monitoring through electronic ankle shackles or mobile app, telephonic or in-person appointments, and arbitrary home visits.”
They go on to note the origins of the humanitarian-sounding language (more on this history at another time):
“Previously, some advocates used the term to describe community-based programs that ensure immigrants are released from physical detention and provided with the support they need to fight their immigration case.”
In this post, I want to argue for a change in terminology by emphasizing that ICE’s ATD program is really an electronic monitoring program.
Electronic monitoring can be defined most simply as the “use of digital technology to monitor, track and constrain an individual's movements outside of a prison, jail or detention center.”2
I view the phrase electronic monitoring as preferable for a few simple reasons.
First, electronic monitoring is the most generic term used both by people in the industry and researchers who study it. Going back decades now, the term electronic monitoring has been used by researchers to collectively describe the various inventions that private companies have come up with—some disturbing, some hilarious, some now the norm—to track people for various reasons.
In fact, BI, the contractor that runs ICE’s ATD program, describes its products as including “a wide range of electronic monitoring systems”3 and as creating “products and solutions that meet the needs of the electronic monitoring (EM) industry.”4
Notice that BI views electronic monitoring (EM) as an industry. We’ll come back to this over time, but for now, it illustrates another benefit to using the term electronic monitoring: it highlights the ways in which ICE’s electronic monitoring of immigrants is not an isolated phenomenon, but is connected to the use of EM elsewhere, mainly (but not only) the criminal justice system.
Electronic monitoring also dispenses with the “misappropriated” term alternatives to detention—which, in my experience over the past few months, generates considerable confusion—by more accurately and succinctly describing what ICE’s ATD program is actually doing: the agency is monitoring immigrants (non-citizens) through electronic devices and technologies.
And, yes, I know that the program is more formally known as ISAP—the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program—which is, frankly, much less confusing and more specific when you spell it all out. However, if you do spell it out, it’s a jargony mouthful (12 syllables), and if you use the acronym ISAP (pronounced “eye-sap”), it sounds like the typical government alphabet soup.
For these reasons, I am advocating for any of you reading this (but especially journalists and other writers) to replace any reference to “alternatives to detention” with the phrase “electronic monitoring.” It’s less confusing and more accurate, and I believe your readers will thank you. I would also suggest that Immigration and Customs Enforcement drop its use of the phrase alternatives to detention.
I’d like to point out that the previous three posts (if you count this one) have avoided a critique of ICE’s electronic monitoring program. I have only been interested in understanding and describing the program in terms (and numbers) that are as fair, accurate, and neutral as possible.
In the next post, however, I want to introduce ways that scholars have conceptualized electronic monitoring from a more critical perspective through the following concepts: e-carceration, techno-carcerality, and extended punishment.
Stay tuned for that post coming out this week.
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Thank you for this. Words are important, especially in this context and when a government is involved. Same for "expulsion" vs. "deportation." I hope those are being used accurately by a majority of media outlets.