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No. 1 (2024)

Civilising the Scaffold: a renewed carceral space in videoconferencing trials

  • Marco Nocente
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3280/rgioa1-2024oa17377
Submitted
febbraio 28, 2024
Published
2024-03-21

Abstract

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.

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