Computationally Confined in Cook County: Pretrial Electronic Monitoring as a Failed Alternative to Incarceration

Electronic monitoring is used widely throughout the United States as an alternative to physical detention. While it is often presented as a reform to incarceration, recent research has shown that electronic monitoring is an ineffective alternative that expands carceral space and power rather than limiting it. This paper analyzes pretrial electronic monitoring in Cook County in support of this scholarship. It argues that pretrial electronic monitoring, specifically the program operated by the Cook County Sheriff, recreates harms of incarceration and creates new harms unique to electronic monitoring. Recent ameliorative reforms were made to the program in the SAFE-T Act, a piece of omnibus criminal justice reform passed in Illinois. These reforms made meaningful, though not radical, changes to the program in an attempt to improve the conditions of monitoring. In response, Sheriff Tom Dart decided to shut down the program due to purported safety concerns, placing all electronic monitoring under the control of the Office of the Chief Judge. That these ameliorative changes caused the Sheriff to determine the program unviable further reinforces electronic monitoring in Cook County as a vehicle of carceral power and oversight.