Digital justice and video links: Connecting and conflating courtroom and carceral space

Abstract

With a focus on the criminal justice system, this chapter scrutinises the uptake of digital technologies in criminal procedure and the resulting shift in the spatial relationships involved in legal adjudication. Concentrating specifically on the increasing use of audiovisual link technologies (also known as video links, live links, or videoconferencing) that connect public courtrooms with non-public sites of custody or detention, this chapter examines how courtroom space is in the process of being delocalised, dispersed, distributed, or dematerialised to prison video link studios and other remote sites. What are the implications for the administration of justice when the courtroom becomes virtual or fully digitised and the physical presence of certain key actors is no longer required? This chapter seeks to enhance understandings of the profound transformation that is occurring in court space and the implications for the delivery of justice as the system shifts from the terrestrial realm to the digital. The coronavirus pandemic has distilled the significance of closely examining the emergence of digital justice.