Electronic Monitoring in Tucson, Arizona

The limited use of electronic monitoring (EM) in Pima County, Arizona, is a result of state legislation restricting its application to nonviolent misdemeanor sentences, excluding pretrial cases. Expanding EM to pretrial use could significantly reduce jail populations and address racial disparities, as Black individuals make up 15% of the incarcerated population despite being only 4% of the county's total population. Advocates should push for these reforms and challenge local media narratives that perpetuate fear-based opposition to pretrial reforms, while ensuring EM is implemented as a tool for decarceration, not expanded surveillance.