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Aneirin -> RE: Politics and too much security (2/16/2011 3:53:47 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: jlf1961
Recently I heard a news commentator call for putting a camera on every street corner to deter crime. The commentator was Jane Velaz Mitchel.
There is cctv cameras to catch speeders and people running red lights, in fact they are all over the place in my home town.
A 2008 Report by UK Police Chiefs concluded that only 3% of crimes were solved by CCTV. source
Chicago has installed many cameras in order to deter crime:
quote:
A giant web of video-surveillance cameras has spread across Chicago, aiding police in the pursuit of criminals but raising fears that the City of Big Shoulders is becoming the City of Big Brother.
While many police forces are boosting video monitoring, video-surveillance experts believe Chicago has gone further than any other U.S. city in merging computer and video technology to police the streets. The networked system is also unusual because of its scope and the integration of nonpolice cameras.
The city links the 1,500 cameras that police have placed in trouble spots with thousands more—police won't say how many—that have been installed by other government agencies and the private sector in city buses, businesses, public schools, subway stations, housing projects and elsewhere. Even home owners can contribute camera feeds.
source
When does it become to much? Are politicians actually considering this move, considering the evidence provided by the UK proving that CCTV has done little to aid in solving crimes?
'Help to reduce crime', was the reason we were sold the video monitoring of our streets, that was bullshit and now most know it, for they don't help that much at all, apart from provide the material for tv programs to show the public to justify more surveillance, and create the fear that the streets are full of crime. Many in the UK are dummy cameras, plain don't work, or are not switched on, they are to all intents and purposes visual street pollution.
The other thing that many do not consider, is the fact that through video surveillance everyone is a suspect, everyone is being watched in case they do a crime.
A chap I heard about a few years back, parked his flash car in a municipality run so called secure car park, secure by it being so it was said, constantly video monitored. He parked his car in what he reckoned was a good place and paid the toll to be there instead of parking anywhere else. He picked a spot he reckoned his car would be viewed from two angles went away, and came back to find his car gone, stolen. Ok, there will be video evidence, but why had the police not come to stop the crime he wondered, only to find both cameras in the car park were broken, they were recording nothing, he never got his car back. Now if cameras are to be used , then they must be working, and they must be of use in stopping crime, the reason we are told for their existence, if it should be found out that the cameras are dummy, broken, not switched on or not being watched, then that should be a punishable crime, as there is no use having a device set up to prevent crime, if it does not work.
Where I used to live, in front of the house, thea area was frequented with drunks, drug users and prostitutes, it also being a place of communication, where the buses stopped, the public telephones are, the place was always an attraction to all types of undesireable. The public phone box there was used as the ordering point for drugs, a user went and made his call and a few minutes later, the ubiquitos white mercedes with blacked out windows would turn up and have a conversation with the now loitering drug customer, exchanges would take place and the car drive off. Hopefully the now happy customer would just piss off, but sometimes they didn't, and there took to mine and my neighbour's cars, forcing entry, or just plain vandalising. Constant calls to the police were made, we all, that is myself and m neighbours monitored what was happening and bombarded the police switchboard with crimes as they happened. In the end, the police continually failed to turn up, so we all suggested cctv monitoring, put is a neighbourhood case for it, but it was denied on the grounds on insufficient funding, only later a cop made an off hand remark saying the real reason was they knew it was a high crime spot, but they didn't want to be having to come out every second of the day and also it was good that the majority of street crime was concentrated in one spot, not all over the area. Oh fab, what about us, why was our neighbourhood to be the victim of crime, just because the police could not be bothered to do their job.
CCTV cameras exist to either stop crime before it happens, there saying we are all suspects, or they are a political symbol to suggest the security people are doing their job, and we can all rest assured we and our property are safe from crime, they are in most respects, a cop out.
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