The Oh, Hello and welcome to Behind the News. My name is Doug Henwood, the

rigorously Orthodox two segments today, Wanda Bertram or Carcel State

regular, we'll talk about an under-appreciated aspect of American punishment, electronic

monitoring, and then Joseph Tyre will give us the rundown of Hezbollah.

We're familiar with some aspects of mass incarceration, most famously the roughly 2 million people behind bars, and less

famously the almost 4 million on probation or parole. These are enormous numbers approaching

the combined populations of Los Angeles and Houston.

A much less salient form of correctional supervision is electronic monitoring,

the ankle bracelet that keeps cops informed of the target's whereabouts.

It might seem like a humane alternative to life behind. of the of crimes. It can have terrible effects in the physical and mental health

or the monitored. Herewith Moore is Wanda Bertram, who among other things works with

the Prison Policy Initiative. The PPI has published several reports in electronic

monitoring the most recent in October. Wanda Bertram.

Electronic monitoring I think seems like a magic bull to some people. It seems humane and

not as bad as prison, but in some ways it's

like prison without bars, isn't it?

It is. The typical picture around electronic monitoring that you hear from lawmakers is

that it's a cheap high-tech alternative to incarceration.

And for anyone who has been studying the criminal legal space for any amount of time,

all of those words are major red flags.

In what way?

You know, you can start with alternative to incarceration right that's a that's a word that we hear a lot about a bunch of different things

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