Resum

Electronic control is any electronic device that enables to control an individual at a given distance. Different monitoring technologies allowing for diverse forms of control are included within this concept. Its use is introduced in the US criminal justice system in the mid 1980s and has since developed very fast and been extended to the UK and other European countries. The main use of electronic control in the various countries has been to secure home arrest orders and in the correctional arena. Electronic monitoring represents only a small percentage of all community penalties imposed during the 1990s both in the UK and in the US; however, more recent data shows how for instance in the UK its use expands to up to 17% of community penalties. Regarding its use in the Spanish legal system, it must be pointed out that in spite of affecting various fundamental individual rights electronic monitoring may be adopted in a way which is respectful with our constitutional order. On the other hand, the limited normative development of the measure has to be underlined, in relation to art. 48 of the criminal code, permanent localization orders and the framework of art. 86.4 of the penitentiary regulation. On the basis of empirical research undertaken in various countries it may be sustained that electronic monitoring constitutes a measure that can fulfil the various aims traditionally attributed to criminal sanctions, and that it adds punitive content and an incapacitating effect upon those non correctional sentences with which it is imposed. In this direction, we may defend an expansion of the use of electronic monitoring in the Spanish criminal law system because it is capable of reducing the use of imprisonment if it is imposed in more serious cases and to individuals who pose a greater risk than those who could be sanctioned with an alternative penalty without electronic control.

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