Dear ,

Surveillance and criminalization of Black, Indigenous, and migrant communities is NOT new. What has changed is the technology that is available to enact mass incarceration and social control over our communities. Electronic monitoring (EM) is one of the latest technologies in the long line and history of social control under racial capitalism.

In short, EM is a form of digital incarceration, often in the form of a wrist or ankle “shackle” that can monitor a person’s location, among other exploitative data. Though it may be framed as a positive reform, we know it’s actually just an alternative form of mass incarceration, violating privacy, limiting financial opportunities, and reinforcing harmful stigmas.

In 2022, MediaJustice developed Unshackling Freedom, the toolkit designed to combat e-carceration by offering resources and tools to directly-impacted communities and organizations.