This dissertation project takes an interdisciplinary approach towards theorizing how we understand new modes of incarceration and confinement in the digital age. It makes key interventions in the fields of surveillance studies, carceral studies, critical data and technology studies, ethnic and racial studies. I argue that less conventional modes of incarceration and confinement, which are enabled through technologies, the Internet and processes of datafication, conceal the everyday carceral functions that target and exploit racialized people. Chapter 1 examines mobile carceral technologies that are part of Canada’s immigration and detention system. I investigate how notions of increased freedom that are associated with carceral technologies like electronic monitoring and voice reporting do not necessarily coincide with increased autonomy. In Chapter 2, I consider the relationship between mobile phone cameras and the rise of police body-worn cameras. More specifically, I examine how policing and surveillance technologies disproportionately take aim at Black people and communities, making the mere occupation of public and digital space extremely precarious. Lastly, in Chapter 3, I challenge the notion that biometric systems and technologies are race-neutral guarantors of identity, specifically within the polemical space of the modern airport. I argue that the airport’s security and surveillance infrastructure operates according to racialized knowledges, which unofficially validate the profiling of Muslim travelers by both human and non-human operators. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This dissertation encourages the reader to rethink notions of incarceration from both theoretical and practical perspectives; however, it is not a project about incarceration in the traditional sense. I argue that any notion of incarceration needs to be re-conceptualized in an age that is driven by big data and emergent technologies. While I draw on state and institutional forms of confinement in Canada, all of which have long and established histories of racism and oppression, I contend that notions of incarceration or confinement have bled into everyday life, particularly for racialized and marginalized people and communities. By surveying different surveillance technologies deployed across Canada’s immigration and detention system, the institution of policing and the biometric airport, I suggest that our understanding of the carceral has drastically changed. As issues of race, discrimination and oppression continue to underpin the structures of this newer carceral system and its modes of surveillance and confinement, it is a system that is less visible and physically confining but equally restrictive.

Body-worn cameras are a promising new development in policing. They have been linked to positive outcomes such as decreases in use of force and complaints against officers. However, this new technology has produced a number of issues that could thwart a successful body-worn camera program implementation. One issue is the extent in which officers possess positive attitudes toward using body-worn cameras. If officers do not view body-worn cameras positively, cameras may not be used to their full potential. A promising factor that has emerged from past research in explaining attitudes toward body-worn cameras is organizational justice. Broadly, organizational justice is defined as the extent in which members of an organization are treated fairly and believe this to be the case. Organizational justice has been linked to positive organizational outcomes such as increased compliance with organizational directives and positive evaluation of organizational leadership. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between organizational justice and attitudes toward body-worn cameras in police officers across three agencies. Findings indicated that there was no observable relationship between perceptions of organizational justice and attitudes toward body-worn cameras. There were a number of competing explanations for the findings, including potential measurement issues, possible intervening variables, and the possibility that there is no relationship between organizational justice and attitudes toward body-worn cameras.