Chapter 21 Chapter Synopses

Chapter 21: Surveillance and security in a risk society

Over the last two decades, a range of new electronic and digital technologies have come to be employed as tools of formal control, security, exclusion and punishment, bringing with them 'new' social practices which many commentators – rightly or wrongly - have argued are likely to have profound consequences for established civil liberties.

This chapter offers the reader a general introduction to these new technologies, including an overview of exactly what forms they now take, how they function, and their usage both in the private sector (as a form of surveillance and physical exclusion) and in the public domain as an instrument of criminal justice (e.g. the electronic tagging and monitoring of offenders). From a theoretical standpoint, these themes introduce the reader to the work of Michel Foucault, Jonathon Simon and Malcolm Feely, as well as Richard Jones' concept of 'digital rule'.