Countering surveillance: using actor-network theory to understand how organised crime is displaced and harms arise as offenders become invisible to the gaze of electronic monitoring and law enforcement.

Abstract

The intensification of surveillance is claimed to have created a new era of crime control, which renders visible, activities that were once beyond the purview of justice agencies. Nevertheless, little data has been gathered concerning how offenders within organised crime groups navigate this optically penetrated terrain to become invisible and continue their illegal pursuits. This article compares ethnographic findings from two separate investigations: of offenders subject to the surveillant penalty of Electronic Monitoring and organised criminals under the investigative observation of law enforcement. It shows how organised offending becomes displaced and worse harms arise as they deploy counter-surveillance strategies, despite facing increased odds of detection. These findings are theorised through actor-network theory, an approach which asserts that objects have agency and can achieve/frustrate socio-technical goals, to highlight how surveillance becomes negotiable for organised offenders.