It is no secret that human rights violations have long taken place behind prison walls. Forced labor, shackling women during childbirth, indefinite solitary confinement—acts that would be decried as torture in other contexts—are normalized in prison environments, which have been treated as sites of diminished rights of privacy, autonomy, and due process. These violations are racially disparate, with Black and other marginalized communities disproportionately criminalized and imprisoned.
At the same time, technological advances in surveillance, algorithmic risk assessment, and other data-driven analytics extend the carceral state beyond prison walls in the name of prison reform or public safety. Attempts at more humane “alternatives” to incarceration, such as the increasing use of ankle monitors or facial recognition apps for “e-carceration,” introduce carceral control into non-carceral spaces, forming what legal scholar Kate Weisburd calls the “carceral home.” Similar extensions are happening in areas including the border, education, and child welfare.
Through the expanded use of carceral technologies, the psychological torture traditionally confined to prison walls now permeates day-to-day experiences. These technologies subject an unprecedented number of individuals—including those who have not been charged with a crime—to indiscriminate, diffuse forms of psychological torture.
Art. 7. "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment..." International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
What is psychological torture?
The dehumanizing harms of carceral technology are well documented by scholars and organizations, but its categorization as psychological torture has received less attention. This is in large part because psychological torture is notoriously difficult to define, as its methods for unsettling and disorienting victims depend on both the individual and the specific context. Moreover, the blurred lines of psychological torture make it easier to justify its use, especially as physical torture has become less socially acceptable.
Here, we take psychological torture to be the intentional infliction of severe mental or emotional distress to manipulate, control, or break a person’s will. It involves inducing anxiety, inverting once comforting objects or environments into sources of threat, and instilling a pervasive sense of fear or impending harm that can come to oneself or others. Psychological torture affects not only the subject of torture but also their world, including their understanding of their place in society, their family, and their community.
Psychological torture is empirically comparable to physical torture in the mental suffering it causes. Common tactics for psychological torture include disorientation, sleep deprivation, and strict control of a victim’s environment and body. By controlling the victim’s body and autonomy through forced stressed positions, humiliation, and exposure to harsh conditions, it impacts every aspect of their existence, dictating when to use the bathroom, when and what to eat, and how to position their body. These methods are designed to deprive the victim of their identity, sense of control, and ability to know who and what to trust.
The use of carceral technologies extends these forms of psychological torture into non-carceral spaces. Below, we identify three ways that electronic monitoring devices—systems used to monitor the location and real-time movements of individuals who are part of legal or carceral systems, such as GPS ankle monitors, mobile monitoring, and radio frequency identification tags—can psychologically torture their users.
Disorientation
Torture theorists discuss how disorientation tactics can invert the meaning of familiar objects, transforming objects of ordinary comfort into potential sources of harm. Under electronic monitoring, one’s home life becomes strictly fragmented, and reality becomes distorted. Family members become not only caregivers but also unofficial monitors and enforcers. Normal movements, such as grocery shopping, medical appointments, and commuting to work, must be precisely scheduled and approved, turning the mundane unpredictability of everyday life into a source of potential reincarceration.
These tools transform everyday spaces into potential evidence of criminality, creating states of anxiety and hypervigilance. Periods of rest and recovery in the home are subverted as people obsessively worry about checking battery levels and connection status, as any technical malfunction could lead to re-incarceration.
Sleep deprivation
Sleep deprivation is a key torture tactic for breaking down an individual’s defenses. Keeping a person awake through forced cold showers or physical activity, loud noises, or glaring lights can lead to severe cognitive impairments, poor health, and even death. Electronic monitoring technologies notoriously cause sleep deprivation. As devices wrapped around the ankle, a sensitive area of the body, their bulkiness, heat-trapping, and pressure on the body can cause discomfort through skin irritation, exacerbated sweating, numbing, and itching, making uninterrupted sleep difficult or impossible. These devices also disrupt sleep by inducing constant stimulation: incessant noises such as beeping, the need for continuous attention since their batteries require waking up repeatedly to charge, and altering one’s homeostasis during sleep by heating up and causing temperature fluctuation.
Such devices limit where their users can sleep by demanding that they stay next to an outlet at all times. The user may unintentionally trigger an alert, which—in addition to inducing fear and chronic stress—can further interfere with sleep, resulting in hyperarousal and cases of insomnia.
Control over bodies and environments
Control of behavior, hyper-surveillance of self-expression, and humiliation are also common tactics of psychological torture, instilling in victims a sense of loss of control. Electronic monitoring exerts control over the user’s body by restricting their space, demanding constant attention, and dictating how they spend their time. Users often fear social ostracism, prompting efforts to conceal their devices. One user shared that they had to alternate between three kinds of pants that were long enough to hide the monitor while they were sitting. Unable to wear slacks at work, they were forced to stand out with jeans.
Beyond humiliation, these devices force people into difficult choices, compromising their right to basic hygiene. One user, given only four hours of movement three days a week, could not balance work and a university internship, ultimately sacrificing essentials like soap and clothing. These tools not only restrict basic rights but also cause psychological harm by degrading and controlling the body—dictating what the person can eat, how they can care for themselves, and creating stress through forced choices and bodily position.
Transferring contexts
Carceral technologies such as facial and voice recognition, predictive policing, and risk assessment instruments are often designed for environments where people have lost their rights. Consequently, such tools rarely respect human rights. As these technologies are deployed in new contexts—like borders, schools, and public benefits programs—they are not only used on individuals without criminal records but also transfer and reinforce assumptions of guilt on the communities forced to use them.
As carceral technologies spread into everyday contexts, they have the potential to psychologically torture their users. The connection between electronic monitoring and psychological torture reveals that psychological harm arises from the forced and unabating engagement required by carceral applications of these technologies. Their ubiquitous presence in daily life demands constant attention, creates a false sense of impending harm, and wears down the user, eventually leading to psychological distress, disrupted life management, and—ultimately—a distorted sense of self and agency.
These issues make salient how psychological torture is increasingly normalized as a punitive measure, both in its less obvious forms, such as electronic monitoring, as well as its more direct symbolic displays. Enshrining human rights protections requires not only addressing the harmful materiality of these devices but also centering liberatory alternatives to ensure technological “reforms” don’t subject people “to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
This blog is part of OGR's ongoing Technology & Human Rights series.