Navigating the dichotomy of smart prisons: between surveillance and rehabilitation.

The use of AI has progressed rapidly in recent years, and the notion of smartness is commonplace. However, while the topic of smart cities has received considerable research attention, there has been a lack of discussion about the use of smart technologies in prisons. While, especially in Eastern countries, AI in law enforcement is mainly used for security and control purposes (in Hong Kong, intelligent CCTV can detect unusual behaviour, and wristbands are used to collect data on prisoners), in Northern Europe the trend is to build smart prisons where AI is used as a rehabilitation tool (in Finland, Virtual Reality is employed to help rehabilitation). Adopting a comparative approach, the aim of this article is to demonstrate that AI is a transformative technology that is provoking structural changes in criminal law enforcement – especially in prisons – and that these changes express two opposing tendencies, that could transform the essence of penalties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]