Gendering the carceral web: Public sector reform, technology and digital (in)justice

Abstract

The UK government's Transforming Our Justice System agenda represents an emerging system of penal governance. Its cumulative impact, manifested through the mainstreaming of virtual hearings, a system of automatic online convictions and the Single Justice Procedure is a story yet to tell, with the potential impact on marginalised women simply a footnote. Such women, well-documented victims of the legal aid cuts as well as the digital divide, must comply with and negotiate the requirements of the carceral web alone. Pursuance of the reforms, representing the next instalment in the neo-liberal justice agenda, exposes another example of life at the penal–welfare nexus. This precarious territory has burgeoned since government-imposed austerity, with implications for self-criminalisation, net-widening and social justice. Reforms couched in the language of ‘efficiency’ and ‘common sense’ are likely to run in direct opposition to what marginalised women might need (or respond well to) and may jeopardise official reductionist strategies.