Abstract
The use of electronic monitoring (EM) by the Brazilian criminal justice system has been expanding since the end of the first decade of the new millennium and its application is now present in all states of the federation. There are many controversies surrounding the use of EM in Brazil and in the world, with debates focusing on its potential to decrease the number of inmates, the stigma that victimizes monitored people, the right to privacy, and its role in reducing reoffending and in the rehabilitation of offenders. This article deals with the relationship between electronic monitoring and criminal reoffending. It presents the theoretical foundations used by those who defend the potential of EM to reduce recidivism and the findings of major international investigations that assess the recidivism of people monitored through case-control studies published in the period 2001 to 2021. The findings point to little comprehensive studies, which monitored the recidivism of participants for a limited time. The results are divergent and do not support a general claim that electronic monitoring reduces criminal recidivism.
Keywords
crime; electronic monitoring; control groups; reoffending