British Traffic Wardens Issued CCTV Head Cameras

Rick writes "The Surveillance Society of Great Britain has taken another turn for the worse, as traffic wardens in Eccles, Manchester are being issued with CCTV head sets and given the legal power to impose fines of up to £80 for littering and other anti social behavior"

Comments

Re:Propaganda

[stonertom]

While anti-social behaviour is a bit ambiguous in terminology I got the impression from the news last night, that the cameras were to stop the people who feel it's the traffic warden's fault they're parked on double yellow lines. Here in England, a huge number of people have a huge problem with parking laws and seem to believe that abuse and violence will get there ticket canceled. If I was a warden, I'd want the evendance that some chav really DID spend 20 mins shouting death threats at me. As a side note: I met a doorman with a camera on his head before, and I hope they made the camera strong. As soon as there was a fight the first thing to be hit was the camera (obviously the camera isn't sending footage live to a CCTV server, duh!)

Exactly so, the problem is lawyers

[Flying pig]

The rot actually started when UK solicitors (a kind of lawyer) lost their monopoly on house conveyancing, i.e. buying and selling houses. This was their main source of easy income. As a result they started looking for additional income and have gradually been going down the path of the US with ambulance chasing, no win no fee etc.

The US model was rooted in a very different society. In the UK, the lawyers are behaving like US lawyers, challenging everything, while in general the magistrates and the judges have been more tolerant than they would be in the US. This has caused low level criminals to believe that they can always get off, and leads to the need to have several police involved in even the most minor cases because lawyers will challenge the evidence of a single policeman. In the past they would not, and, while this led to the occasional miscarriage of justice, it did mean that the integrity of the police was very important because bad evidence by one would taint all police.

The headcams are basically a way of circumventing challenges from bad lawyers. As such they are not evidence of a surveillance society, they are evidence of a society where the justice system has been tilted too far in favour of criminals.