Reading the Same Data Differently: Interpretive Labor Across System Boundaries in Electronic Monitoring

2026-06-25

AI Summary

This study addresses interpretive discrepancies between monitored individuals and supervising authorities in electronic monitoring systems, where divergent standpoints lead to misjudgments of behavior and imbalanced interactions. Drawing on China’s community correction system, the research employs semi-structured interviews (with 26 supervisees and 12 supervisors), situational analysis, and a CSCW theoretical framework to uncover structural misalignments in data interpretation. Introducing the concept of “interpretive misalignment,” the work reconceptualizes continuous sensing as distributed interpretive labor and identifies five categories of behavioral responses stemming from asymmetries in data, context, and inference. Building on these findings, the study proposes design directions that enhance transparency and mutual negotiability in data-driven decision-making, offering novel perspectives on intelligibility, contestability, and accountability across system boundaries.

Abstract

Electronic monitoring (EM) systems are increasingly used in community corrections to enforce spatial, temporal, and behavioral rules through continuous sensing. While prior work has examined EM as a criminal justice tool or as a mechanism for compliance, less is known about how sensed data become meaningful in everyday practice. This poster examines EM as a dual-sided sensing system in which supervised individuals and authorities reason about the same data stream from different positions. Based on semi-structured interviews with 26 supervised individuals and 12 authorities in China's community corrections system, we show that supervised individuals infer system logic from outcomes with limited visibility into how data are interpreted, while authorities reconstruct behavior from ambiguous traces using contextual knowledge, professional experience, and institutional procedures. We call this structural divergence interpretive misalignment. It emerges from asymmetric access to data, context, and reasoning processes, and it shapes behavior through probing, strategic adaptation, over-compliance, disengagement, and contestation. We contribute a CSCW account of continuous sensing as distributed interpretive work and identify design opportunities for making data-to-decision processes more legible, contestable, and accountable across system sides.

Problem

• electronic monitoring
• interpretive misalignment
• continuous sensing
• system boundaries
• data interpretation

Innovation

• interpretive misalignment
• electronic monitoring
• distributed interpretive work
• CSCW
• data legibility