EP #81: Understanding E-Carceration: Electronic Monitoring, the Surveillance State, and the Future of Mass Incarceration

Lisa is hosting solo today and is joined by James Kilgore, 
an educator, writer and activist based in Urbana, Illinois to
talk about his book, Understanding E-Carceration: Electronic
Monitoring, the Surveillance State, and the Future of Mass
Incarceration.


James Kilgore is an educator, writer and activist based in
Urbana, Illinois. He writes widely on issues of mass
incarceration and the politics and history of southern Africa. He
has written four novels, all of which he drafted during his six
and a half years in prison.


He is also the author of a primer on the
prison-industrial-complex: Understanding Mass Incarceration: A
People's Guide to the Key Civil Rights Struggle of Our Time. When
he is not writing, he works in his community to fight against
jail building and to open door of opportunity for people with
felony convictions.

Book Description: 

A riveting primer on the growing trend of surveillance,
monitoring, and control that is extending our prison system
beyond physical walls and into a dark future—by the prize-winning
author of Understanding Mass Incarceration





“James Kilgore is one of my favorite commentators regarding
the phenomenon of mass incarceration and the necessity of
pursuing truly transformative change.” —Michelle Alexander,
author of The New Jim Crow





In the last decade, as the critique of mass incarceration has
grown more powerful, many reformers have embraced changes that
release people from prisons and jails. As educator, author, and
activist James Kilgore brilliantly shows, these rapidly spreading
reforms largely fall under the heading of “e-carceration”—a range
of punitive technological interventions, from ankle monitors to
facial recognition apps, that deprive people of their liberty,
all in the name of ending mass incarceration.





E-carceration can block people’s access to employment, housing,
healthcare, and even the chance to spend time with loved ones.
Many of these technologies gather data that lands in corporate
and government databases and may lead to further punishment or
the marketing of their data to Big Tech.





This riveting primer on the world of techno-punishment comes from
the author of award–winning Understanding Mass Incarceration.
Himself a survivor of prison and e-carceration, Kilgore captures
the breadth and complexity of these technologies and offers
inspiring ideas on how to resist.