Digital Technologies and Techniques of Enclosure and Incarceration in “Smart Prison and Detention”

Abstract

Smart prisons and smart detention are concerned with the implementation of digital technology for control and surveillance as well as for rehabilitation. Previous research— still sparse—points to tensions between the aim of making the corrections sector more efficient and the goal of rehabilitating incarcerated subjects. An examination of the entanglement of digital technologies and techniques of enclosure and incarceration within prison and detention systems can be viewed through the lens of technologies of incarceration as an alternative to the industry-driven notion of “smart prisons.” In major smart technologies in use globally, three socio-technical registers shape carceral environments: absence and presence, where selective access to media and surveillance technologies creates controlled connectivity; testbedding, where prisons serve as sites for piloting innovations such as electronic monitoring before broader societal adoption; and suspended life, where restricted technological access produces temporal disconnection and prolonged waiting. Situating these registers within historical and contemporary discourses of surveillance, control, and technological solutionism show technologies of incarceration reinforce punitive logics under the guise of care and efficiency, extending carceral imaginaries beyond prison walls into everyday life.