Eternal Vigilance Inc.: The Satellite Tracking of Offenders in "Real Time''

The satellite tracking of offenders, particularly sex offenders, has grown in significance in the United States since the late 1990s. Some evaluations have been undertaken, but few of the larger theoretical questions it raises, as an aspect of surveillance and remote location monitoring, have been explored. Drawing in part on the work of Manuel Castells and Paul Virilio and on the concept of "time-space compression,'' this paper appraises the significance of satellite tracking in the context of "the network society'' and assesses its implications for supervising offenders in so-called "real time.'' It speculates on the different temporal experiences of monitors and the monitored and explores a dubious but possible future development in tracking technology: the power to inflict pain at a distance, forms of which were in fact considered by the those who first imagined offender tracking in the 1970s. For some offenders, potentially subject to lifelong satellite tracking, the specter of "eternal vigilance'' is raised, and the paper concludes with ethical questions this practice provokes.