“Feeling Almost like Everyone Else” - Israel’s Electronic Monitoring Program: Perceptions and Attitudes among Released Prisoners and Their Supervisors

The growing use of various methods for electronic monitoring (EM) in the Western criminal justice system has led researchers to examine the social and personal consequences of this type of monitoring. This article examines perceptions toward the EM program among supervised released prisoners and their supervisors in Israel. Questionnaires were given to all released prisoners participating in the EM program in 2010, as well as to 12 supervisors and Parole Board members. The EM program’s strong focus on occupation, therapy, and developing a good relationship with a therapist, compared with the alternative of continued custody, appears to have led most released prisoners to express, or at least declare, a high level of positive expectations for the future and a sense of partnership with the normative circles surrounding them. However, supervisors expressed a high level of ambiguity over the program’s goals and operational protocols. While program supervisors emphasized the importance of the rehabilitation and therapeutic elements of EM, Parole Board members showed mixed reactions toward the program.