Chapter Text
The Washington Post | Politics
Proposed Bill 2432 Would Decriminalize 30 Offenses Against Monitored Criminals: Critics Sound Alarm
Allowing the public to film or deny services to offenders sparks outrage from advocacy groups.
Published January 15, 2026 | 24.2K upvotes | 18.3K comments
The New York Times | Politics
Tough-on-Crime Advocates Push for Visible Signifiers of Criminal Status
A series of proposed reforms by Sen. William Rice (R-CO) include wristbands, jumpsuits, and even collars.
Published March 4, 2026 | 18.1K upvotes | 11.2K comments
The Atlantic | Opinion
Bill 2432 Is Political Theater Disguised as Criminal Justice Reform
Unconstitutional proposals like 2432 that will never see the light of day create the illusion of action before midterms. The real danger is what happens next: when more reasonable-sounding measures are quietly added as compromises.
Published October 8, 2026 | 11.6K upvotes | 7.9K comments
Reuters | U.S. News
Controversial Bill 2432 Passes in Senate: Pilot Program to Launch in January 2028
Following a razor-thin 51-49 vote, both the collaring measures and decriminalization provisions will remain intact.
Published February 6, 2027 | 215.7K upvotes | 53.2K comments
The Daily Mail | Opinion
Entitled Protesters RAGE Against Collar Program for Criminals
Apparently, organizing a 6,000-strong march against accountability is easier for the wokes than simply not shoplifting in the first place
Published May 19, 2027 | 7.1K upvotes | 28.5K comments
CNN | Law & Justice
Supreme Court Upholds Constitutionality of Bill 2432’s Decriminalization Provisions
The 6-3 ruling argues that limiting penalties for select crimes against registered offenders during periods of “reasonable probation” does not violate the Eighth Amendment.
Published December 8, 2027 | 98.4K upvotes | 15.1K comments
BuzzFeed News
We Asked Redditors For Their Worst Collar Stories, And We’ll Never Balk At A $100 Fine Again
“I tried to cover it with a blazer during a job interview. It beeped so loudly I couldn’t even finish answering the first question.”
Published January 13, 2030 | 7.4K upvotes | 3.8K comments
Tess Blake has a twenty-minute window to get home.
This is fine.
Shift ends at 9— really 9:40 after closing duties are done— then it’s a ten minute walk to the nearest subway station. The last train leaves roughly ten after that. It’s perfectly manageable, assuming no slow walkers or rogue crosswalk talkers block her path. Plenty of time. Most days.
But not today.
Today, the universe has decided it hates her. It starts with the woman who comes in at 8:57 PM, clutching a crumpled menu like she’s never been to a fucking Panera before. Tess explains, as politely as she can manage, that the registers shut down in three minutes. It’s only after the woman orders a sandwich that she decides to inquire about every soup on the menu.
“Do you have the chicken noodle?”
“No.”
“What about broccoli cheddar?”
“Not at night.”
“Tomato basil?”
Tess’s knuckles whiten on the register. “We have wild rice.”
By the time the woman leaves, the lobby is a mess, the coffee machine has clogged, and Mark— who was supposed to handle trash tonight—has texted, Sorry, sick, not coming in. Tess curses under her breath as she heaves the bag of garbage outside, setting it next to the dumpster with a grunt. The clock on her phone reads 9:37 PM. There’s still more to do. The twenty-minute window is slipping away. She’ll have to book it to make the train.
Cleaning; lockup; good enough. She locks the door, tugs her coat tighter against the cold, and starts walking fast. Her phone buzzes in her pocket—some Duolingo alert she doesn’t have the time or battery to check—and she glances at the time again. 9:46.
Not great, but doable.
The subway stop looms into view at a fortunate 9:55, and Tess breathes a sigh of relief. Nearly empty; no lines. As long as the train isn’t early, she’s golden. Her body aches with the familiar exhaustion of double shifts and too much time on her feet. She doesn’t even have the energy to scroll through her rapidly dying phone.
She waves her transit card at the turnstile. Beep. Insufficient funds.
Her heart sinks. She flips the card over, tries again. Beep. Insufficient funds.
Rumbling and an automated announcement voice in the distance.
Tess wipes the card on the front of her sweater like maybe the problem is a rogue crease or smudge. She taps it again, harder this time, as if sheer force could change the outcome. Still nothing.
“No, no, no…” she mutters. She pats her jacket pockets, then her bag, fumbling for spare cash. Empty.
Her phone, which is barely clinging to life at this point, won’t even load the transit app before the screen goes dark. She stares at the turnstile, frozen.
There’s no time. The train’s about to leave, and she has an early shift tomorrow. Certainly no rideshare app to save her now. Her phone’s dead, her cash is nonexistent, and her morning self will absolutely hate her if she screws this up. And the platform is empty except for some scruffy-looking guy leaning against the far wall.
She looks at the turnstile again, swallows her nerves, and ducks under the bar.
“Tsk, tsk.”
Tess freezes. She glances over her shoulder, and the scruffy guy is standing there, flipping a badge open like it’s a magic trick.
“You think I didn’t see that?” he says, his voice almost smugly casual. “Fare evasion’s a misdemeanour now. ID.”
A court date. A hearing. It all sounds so… official. Tess takes a day off work for it, which means losing a shift she desperately needs. The courthouse smells like floor polish and stale coffee, and everything feels just slightly too loud: the echo of footsteps, the shuffle of papers, the coughs of strangers. She sits in a hard plastic chair, waiting for her name to be called.
The judge is already at the bench when she’s called, a tall man with tired eyes who keeps glancing at the clock on the wall. His desk is cluttered with manila folders, and he flips through hers with a slow, deliberate disinterest.
“Theresa Blake,” he says, “you stand charged with fare evasion and have entered a plea of guilty. Is that correct?”
“Yes, Your Honour.” Give a quick apology, pay up, move on.
He nods, flipping through a few more pages. There’s no urgency in his movements, but his gaze flicks to the clock on the wall, just for a second. His stomach growls faintly; she hears it, and he hears it, and the clerk hears it, but no one says anything. Tess stares at the desk, hoping this will be quick.
He taps his pen against a stack of papers. “Ms. Blake, while fare evasion is no minor matter—it undermines the system that so many of us rely on—I also note from your intake form that your primary employment is in the food service industry and that your income is limited. Is that information up to date?”
“Y-Yes, Your Honour.”
The judge offers a brief, sympathetic sigh. “In light of your circumstances, I’m convinced that a standard monetary penalty would inflict an undue hardship. That’s not the point of this.”
He pauses, as if expecting her to be grateful. There’s a bit of hope lighting up Tess’ chest. It’s short-lived.
“Instead, I’m sentencing you to two weeks of corrective visibility. You’ll have the chance to think about your actions and serve as an example to others.” He picks up the next file, as though he’s finished, but pauses briefly to add: “You have 72 hours to schedule your collar fitting. I trust this experience will help you make better choices in the future. Good luck to you, Ms. Blake. Next case.”
She stares at the bolded words on the page— two week probation; mandatory visibility; light sensors; decriminalized contact— but they still don’t feel real.
This isn’t the first time she’s heard about this happening. It happened to Sophia, back in college, after that stupid fender-bender. Sophia had cried on the phone for hours about having a criminal record. She was driven to the fitting appointment the next morning, straight back home, and spent the next four weeks living off pre-recorded lectures and DoorDash.
Both of Sophia’s parents were doctors.
Tess has work.
Okay, but, like. The manager has to let her off, right? It’d be a distraction to have her there anyway, wearing that thing. She wouldn’t exactly be productive. So they’d at least let her make up the overtime next month.
Unless they just fire her instead.
Unless she goes in tomorrow and says, Hey, I clearly can’t work under these conditions, and the manager agrees and lets her go. No hard feelings. Just another name to cross off the schedule.
Which means now she has to make the case to her manager about why she can work, actually. Please, don’t fire me—I can be productive, I promise.
The collar feels heavier in her head than it probably will around her neck.
She takes a deep breath. Okay. Fine. She’ll wait the full 72 hours to make the appointment—stretch it out as long as she can—and request a single day off for the fitting. Figure it out. Pull some favours if she has to, get someone to cover her shifts for the rest of the week. Mark owes her one, right? At least she has a plan. Sort of.
Tess has been sitting in this goddamn waiting room for over an hour.
The fitting office smells faintly of disinfectant and burned coffee, like something is always just on the verge of overheating. The chairs are the same stiff plastic ones Tess remembers from middle school detention—hard and uncomfortable, with no way to sit that doesn’t make her back ache. And it’s crowded. It’s a wonder Tess even found a seat at all. Most eyes are downcast— lots texting, lots staring at nothing as though if they can’t see you, you can’t see them. She can hear a low buzz coming from somewhere down the hall.
She watches the screen above the service counter as numbers crawl by: B472… B473… B474. Finally, it’s her turn. Service counter eight.
“Hi. They just called my number. I got here an hour ago?”
The clerk smells like stale peppermints and looks at her like she’s a particularly annoying insect. “Right, well, appointments are just estimates. You’re here now. ID, sentencing papers.”
“Here.”
“Fill this out. Standard waiver. Acknowledges that the collar is government property, any damage is your responsibility, and non-compliance penalties may include fines or extension of your sentence.”
“Okay, but I think I already filled this out onlin—”
“This is different. It’s the liability form. Take a seat and bring it back when you’re done.”
It takes four minutes, and she has to wait another six for the service counter to free up again. “Here. All done.”
“Mhm. And how would you like to pay today?”
Tess’ heart drops. “Pay?”
“$75 fitting fee. You can pay now or defer with interest.”
“I…” That money was supposed to be used for dinner. She’d planned it out already— pizza tonight, no-contact delivery. One nice little treat for her given this mess. Tess is financially literate enough to know that interest adds up quickly. The little treat can wait. “I’ll pay it today.”
“Excellent. Then there’s the security deposit. That’s another $100.”
“What?”
“It’s refundable. It’ll be returned to you when you come in for removal.”
“Um.” Tess is very, very, very lucky she’ll be ending the day with a bank balance in the double digits instead of in the negatives. “Okay. Is Visa alright?”
“Yup. Just tap here.” A beep, and the clerk perks up for the first time this entire conversation. “And… you’re all set! Take your receipt and head to Room 2 for your fitting. Down the hall, second door on the left. Next!”
The back room looks nothing like she expected—no clinical white walls or high-tech equipment. It’s cluttered and cramped, with a faintly sour smell beneath the overpowering disinfectant. The desk in the corner is buried under a mess of tablets, mismatched pens, and open packets of antiseptic wipes. A coffee cup sits precariously close to the edge. And in the center of the room, standing between the desk and a beat-up old chair, there’s a greasy technician in a rumpled uniform.
“You didn’t tie your hair up,” they say. They don’t spare her a second glance, instead rifling through the bowels of a desk drawer. “You were supposed to have it off your neck before you got here. It’s in the guidelines.”
Tess blinks. “I’m sorry—no one told me—”
The technician tosses her a rubber band that looks like it was fished out of the bottom of someone’s purse. “Just make it quick.”
She gathers her curls into a ponytail, grimacing as the rubber band catches and pulls at her scalp. It’s too tight, and the band feels gritty, like it’s been used before. She doesn’t dare say anything.
“Sit,” they say, gesturing to the chair in the middle of the room. It’s old and wobbly, with a rip in the seat cushion that’s been patched over with duct tape. Tess sits. Her fingers find the arms of the chair more by instinct than anything else; they’re the most depressing security blanket in the world.
The technician is considering a sterile-looking tray now, four glossy white collars laid out in a neat little row. Tess has seen the things before, out in public, but she’d only ever really noticed the tacky green LED light back then. With the collars so close-up, and seemingly deactivated, they look alien, now: the translucent casing, faint shadows of their inner workings through the plastic-like surface, the way the light catches in sharp lines like a warning.
“Neck measurements?” the technician asks, flipping through the tablet in their hand.
“What?”
“Did you fill out your neck measurements online? It’s on the intake form.”
“I didn’t—I didn’t see that part.”
The technician sighs sharply through their nose, shaking their head. “Alright. We’ll have to do it manually.”
They pick one up, holding it with a practiced familiarity. Tessa can feel the weight of it in the air between them. She has the sudden, irrational thought that it might bite.
They step behind her, collar in hand, and Tessa stiffens as they lower it toward her neck. She doesn’t mean to, but she flinches—just slightly—when the cold surface touches her skin. The band closes around her neck with a dull snap, and for a moment, she forgets how to breathe. Jesus Christ, it’s actually real. They’re actually doing this.
The technician tugs at the thing from behind, and when they do, Tess can feel it slide against her throat. They tut to themselves. “Mm. No. Too loose.”
The next one pinches her skin as it locks. Tess hisses.
“Don’t squirm,” the technician frowns.
Tessa swallows, her throat brushing against the edge of the collar as she does. “I think it’s too tight.”
They prod, adjust the fit a little, then shrug. “It’s not supposed to be comfortable. Your circulation’s fine.”
They tap at their tablet, and the collar buzzes softly against her neck. That’s when it lights up: bright green cutting into the corners of her vision, all sharp and impossible to ignore. She jerks at the intrusion, but the technician doesn’t even glance up. “Let’s see here. Two weeks. I take it you’re familiar with the conditions of the program?”
“I read the papers.”
“Good. It more or less boils down to behave yourself. And…” They pick up a pencil from the desk, holding it loosely for a moment before letting it clatter to the floor. “Alright, quick test. Get down on your hands and knees. Pick that up.”
Tess freezes, staring at the pencil. For a moment, she wonders if they’re serious, but the technician just looks at her, waiting.
“Now,” they say, tone sharpened slightly. “You’ll get used to this.”
Heat rushes to Tess’s face as she slowly slides out of the chair, her knees pressing into the cold linoleum. She reaches for the pencil, her hand shaking slightly as she picks it up and holds it out.
The technician takes it, then says placidly, “Stay there for a moment.”
She stays. The pause stretches too long— long enough that the weight of what she’s doing presses into her, long enough to feel the full force of exactly where she is. Her face burns, her knees ache, and every light in the room is shining on her.
Finally, the technician speaks. “See, that hesitation? That’s a no-go.” They tap something on their tablet, eyes still fixed on the screen. “If someone asks you to do something— anything within the bounds of the law as per your situation— you do it. You don’t need to look happy, but you do need to comply immediately. No pausing, no attitude, and definitely no arguing. Your serial number’s right here on the front if anyone wants to file a report on you. Understand?”
Tess nods stiffly, still on her knees.
“Good. You can get up now.”
She rises slowly, her legs sore already, and sits back in the chair, gripping the armrests to steady herself. The technician tosses a pamphlet onto the desk in front of her. “I’m guessing you’ll want your security deposit back, so take good care of the collar. You can get it wet, but don’t submerge it—no baths, no swimming. Light sensors are active during the day. Cover it up during non-night hours, and the system will flag you for noncompliance. Don’t try to tamper with it, obviously. If it malfunctions, file a ticket through the app, but keep in mind noncompliance warnings might still apply while it’s down. Enough of those warnings, and— well, I assume you know the drill. Anything else?”
Tess stares at them, unsure if she’s supposed to be asking questions or just nodding. “Uh, no?”
“Great. You’re done. The LED will switch off automatically when your sentence is up. It’s your responsibility to schedule your removal appointment following that.”
And then she’s shuffled out. And then two weeks as public property begins.