Civilising the Scaffold: a renewed carceral space in videoconferencing trials

Journal title RIVISTA GEOGRAFICA ITALIANA
Author/s Marco Nocente
Publishing Year 2024 Issue 2024/1
Language English Pages 19 P. 72-90 File size 0 KB
DOI 10.3280/rgioa1-2024oa17377
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In this article, I analyse the implication of the spread of videoconferencing for prisoners under pre-trial detention as a technology embedded in a process of civilising punishment by bureaucratising criminal procedure. This is specifically examined through a series of letters from Italian prisoners ‘engaged in struggles’, held in maximum security from 2006 to 2020. From a situated perspective, the letters describe videoconferencing as a way of disembodying and recoding the space-time of the prisoners, reducing them to a simulacrum: a series of images, sounds and glances caught by cameras and microphones. This technology ensures, through a both material and virtual geographical solution, efficiency, and security but at the cost of increasing the distance between the judge, society and the accused.

Keywords: carceral geography, videoconferencing, punishment, simulacra.

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Marco Nocente, Civilising the Scaffold: a renewed carceral space in videoconferencing trials in "RIVISTA GEOGRAFICA ITALIANA" 1/2024, pp 72-90, DOI: 10.3280/rgioa1-2024oa17377