Letter to Illinois House Judiciary Committee
by Myaisha Hayes
The following statement will be delivered to the Illinois House Judiciary Committee, during a hearing on electronic monitoring, February 22nd, 2019.
To Members of the Judiciary Committee,
Thank you for holding such a critical and much-needed subject matter hearing on the use of electronic monitoring for people released from Illinois state prisons. I am writing to you all as the National Organizer on Criminal Justice and Technology at the Center for Media Justice. The Center for Media Justice is a national community organizing and advocacy hub fighting for the digital and technology rights of Black and brown communities. We work in partnership with the Urbana Champaign Independent Media Center on the Challenging E-Carceration project, part of our #NoDigitalPrisons campaign, which we launched in 2018 to contest the use of electronic monitoring in the criminal legal and immigration system.
As you will hear from community members and advocates today, electronic monitoring is a critical issue impacting people coming home from prison in Illinois. Despite completing their sentence, there are nearly three thousand Illinoisans living on electronic monitors as a condition of mandatory supervised release. There is no evidence that indicates electronic monitors for people in Illinois and beyond enhance public safety, deter crime or support successful reentry. To the contrary, electronic monitoring poses as a new form of punishment beyond prison walls. The punitive and irrational rules associated with living on an electronic monitor, which include house arrest and other restrictions to movement, create serious barriers for returning citizens to successfully transition back into their everyday life and community post-incarceration. In many ways, electronic monitors actually replicate the punishment so many have experienced while incarcerated, further illustrating that these devices simply shift the site of incarceration from prison cages to digital prisons in our communities. We need legislation to stop the expansion of these ineffective carceral tools, protect the dignity and rights of people who have earned their second chance, and prioritize policies and programs that promote real public safety.
Despite completing their sentence, there are nearly three thousand Illinoisans living on electronic monitors as a condition of mandatory supervised release.
Our support of legislation in Illinois to restrict the use of electronic monitoring for people released from prison is motivated by a growing trend we are seeing nationwide. Despite efforts to reduce our nation’s jail and prison population, the population of people under any sort of post-incarceration state supervision is exploding. As a result, the use of electronic monitoring has increased by 140 percent within the last decade nationwide and will continue to grow if we continue to allow electronic monitors to be misrepresented as reform rather than a form of incarceration by another name.
Electronic monitors actually replicate the punishment so many have experienced while incarcerated, further illustrating that these devices simply shift the site of incarceration from prison cages to digital prisons in our communities.
To more effectively decarcerate our prison and jail populations and enhance public safety, we believe that anyone who is released from prison upon serving their time should have the right to return home without the threat of e-carceration through electronic monitors. Such a measure would lead to better reentry outcomes, more fully restore families and communities, enhance public safety and save Illinois valuable resources. Today’s hearing is just the first step in ensuring fairness and justice for impacted communities. We hope state leaders in Illinois can lead the country in a direction of progress and away from more punishment.
Sincerely,
Myaisha Hayes
National Organizer, Criminal Justice & Technology
Center for Media Justice
If you are in the Chicago area, please RSVP to attend the Illinois House Judiciary Committee Hearing on electronic monitoring on Friday, February 22, 2019 at 10am CT.
Read the new #NoMoreShackles report on ending the use of electronic monitoring for people on parole and join the campaign here.
This is part of a series titled #NoDigitalPrisons. Learn more about the issue here.
