Mowlabocus, Sharif (2016) ‘Y’all need to hide your kids, hide your wife’: mobile applications, risk and sex offender databases. New Media & Society, 18 (11). pp. 2469-2484. ISSN 1461-4448

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Abstract

This article reflects upon recent developments in sex offender tracking and monitoring. Taking as its focus a suite of mobile applications available for use in the United States, the author explores the impact and consequences of remediating the data held by State offender databases. The article charts the recent history of techno-corrections as it applies to this category of criminal, before then undertaking an analysis of current remediation of this legally obtained data. In doing so, the author identifies how the recontextualizing of data serves to (re)negotiate the relationship between the user, the database and registered sex offenders. The author concludes by arguing that the (mobile) mapping of offender databases serves to obscure the original intentions of these recording mechanisms and might hinder their effectiveness in reducing sex offending.

Item Type:	Article
Schools and Departments:	School of Media, Film and Music > Media and Film
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > P Philology. Linguistics > P0087 Communication. Mass media
Depositing User:	Sharif Mowlabocus
Date Deposited:	21 Sep 2015 11:29
Last Modified:	03 Aug 2020 15:23
URI:	http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/55349

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