The Los Angeles Times ran an article today about the large number of false alarms electronic monitoring devices are generating, inundating parole agents with more information than they can possibly process. As a result, the article concludes, some genuine alarms are going unheeded and people when people cut off bracelets to go and commit crimes. The article reiterates the typical slant on electronic monitoring-that it isn’t as comprehensive a control device as a prison cell and that it is not an absolute deterrent to crime.  Like most writing on this topic the piece fails to address three other sets of problems: 1) that in the worse case scenarios many people end up back in prison or jail for being falsely reported out of their house or in a zone from which they are “excluded;” 2) that the absurd use of exclusion zones applied to many people on monitoring due to sex offense convictions is totally inappropriate and administratively impossible to manage; 3) that the real need is for electronic monitoring to be implemented with guidelines that define the rights of people on monitoring and embrace a philosophy of restorative justice not electronic punishment.

Check out the Los Angeles Times piece here.