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Newark and the Future of Crime Fighting
theodp writes "Newark Mayor Cory Booker is betting that cutting-edge technology will reduce crime and spark an economic renaissance. From a newly opened Surveillance Operations Center, cops armed with joystick controllers monitor live video feeds from more than 100 donated cameras scattered across the crime-ridden city. The moves are drawing kudos from businesses like Amazon subsidiary Audible.com, which has moved its HQ to downtown Newark, where space is 50% cheaper than in Manhattan. But are citizens giving up too much privacy?"
Nope, they don't reduce crime. They don't even prevent them. They don't deter and they are pretty much useless.
CCTV cameras are everywhere in the UK, but, according to a recent report by the CCTV manager of Scotland Yard... They simply don't work, despite billions of UKP invested. You can read this analysis here.
Putting real, flesh-and-blood policemen, on the beat is the way to go. Putting cameras (which hardly qualifies as high-tech anyway) don't work.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
They've had this in london for a while, and it's been a severe invasion of privacy.
And it cost billions of pounds yet doesn't help in actually fighting crime.
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"London did have a real problem with terrorism: every few months the Provisional IRA would plant a bomb"
Mostly funded by "concerned" east coast Americans, see NORAID.
Gee thanks,
Alex
The UK has the most camera's per capita, I think. Are there any numbers available on how much crime has decreased in those areas where the camera's are? Also how much have they incread in surrounding areas where they are not.
Crime doesn't move away when cctv's are installed. They simply have pretty much no consistent effects on crime rates at all. And they generally don't help with solving crimes either.
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And these are going to be soooo shot out.
I give them about a week or two , now that people know about them.
..........FULL STOP.
Toni Comer was shown in CCTV footage being repeatedly punched in the face by a South Yorkshire PC, but the IPCC rejected her complaint of assault, presumably because she had the wrong skin tone.
So the cameras do occasionally pick up obvious misconduct, but good luck if you think anything ever comes of it.
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A couple of years back I used to cycle into the city to work. I used to leave my bike tied to the bike parking outside the city council offices, an area which is heavily covered by CCTV.
.
After finishing work one night, I came back to the bike park to find my bike missing. I found some 'bobbies on the beat' and reported it.
Anyway, I got a call back a couple of days later, asking if I could be any more specific about when it happened (I'd been on an 8 hour shift), as unless I could tell them the exact time my bike was stolen, they weren't going to bother checking the CCTV . .
I realise that police have more important things to do, but then what is the point of putting up security cameras overlooking a bike park if you aren't going to bother using them?
The study that you linked does not indicate whether the cameras help prevent crime - only whether they were used to help in convictions. A California study that I read seems to indicate that crimes at least move out of the range of cameras. Too lazy to Google it at the moment :)
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
FYI, there are other newspapers available to read other than the Daily Mail.
You will not go to jail for the act you've described. Full stop. If you keep on hitting their comatose body with the bat until they are dead, then the situation is different.
The study that you linked does not indicate whether the cameras help prevent crime - only whether they were used to help in convictions.
The first one I mentioned in this post does. It's far from conclusive though.
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Guns are not really an issues there was never much of a gun ownership culture in the UK anyway.
Not true at all. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2005/01/23/do2302.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2005/01/23/ixop.html
In a material sense, Britain today has much less of a "gun culture" than at any time in its recent history. A century ago, the possession and carrying of firearms was perfectly normal here. Firearms were sold without licence in gunshops and ironmongers in virtually every town in the country, and grand department stores such as Selfridge's even offered customers an in-house range. The market was not just for sporting guns: there was a thriving domestic industry producing pocket pistols and revolvers, and an extensive import trade in the cheap handguns that today would be called "Saturday Night Specials".
The 2nd Amendment right to bear arms is copied from the English Bill of Rights 1689, as are many of the other "American" rights. Where do you think the various US states got their Castle Doctrine? Seen many castles in the US recently?
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If you read the linked article, she was drunk and epileptic rather than coked up, and officers trained in restraint should never, ever need to punch a woman in the face to subdue her (Sean Connery notwithstanding).
Now that the cops have pepper spray, there's even less excuse.
I'm in full agreement with spending the money on foot patrols rather than CCTV, especially round here where both the camera that covers our street and the ones in the neighbouring park are regularly out of action - happily Hampshire Police are getting more officers out on the beat and it's not before time.
One swallow does not a fellatrix make
I live, teach and observe Newark daily. From my window I can witness a decay and despair that Booker and his team can only imagine. Whenever I travel abroad, I am perplexed as to why Newark, and other US cities, are in such awful conditions.
I also think the majority of Newark citizens are good, but have been worn down into behaving as if there were no rule of law.
Those who think that this could ultimately be a good thing from a civil liberties perspective - I know of no CCTV camera which has caught evidence of police misconduct, even when there is strong reason to believe that they should have done so. (Why this should be the case I leave as an exercise to the reader)
For example, the police murder of Jean Charles de Menezes in the subway in the UK.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
There is also precious little evidence that CCTV actually violates our privacy.