I read that the small town of croydon has more CCTV cameras than new york, britain has around 1% of the worlds population but 20% of all CCTV cameras.

It seems if theres a crime on one street CCTV cameras are installed, if there is a road accident theres a police camera put up. It seems it is our answer to everything including watching us at football matches.

I think CCTV cameras are needed but in moderation, it dosen't seem to have made a major reduction in crime anyway, I'm sure in certain areas where cctv cameras are installed they show a drop but in the last 10 years during which millions of cameras have been installed crime has increased by quite a bit.

Whats peoples view on CCTV? and why do you think Britiain has so many compared to other countries?

Laziness

two words


nanny state

I think the words 'Police State' are more appropriate.

Big Brother is watching you.

Wouldn't go that far just yet, but it's certainly headed in that direction. Not just with CCTV either.

CCTV is just part of the growing surveillance society, with some of the most authoritarian, arrogant control freaks in Government ever.

Orwell was right, he was just a bit out with his timing :ph43r:

http://www.no2id.net/

I would. Have you ever been to Nottingham :lol:

We probably have more than average numbers of CCTV over here in Ireland but it's nothing compared to Britain where it's so in your face and you (well me anyway!) always feel like you're being watched and scrutinised. I find it hard to not be aware of them, they're so intrusive.

There is a need for them but it's a bit over the top in Britain imo

Well maybe in terms of surveillance, but the government would never be able to get away with the stuff featured in 1984, if anyone's read it. And plus if Big Brother was watching us he'd be watching us right now in our homes through some little cam hidden in the phone or something.

Control freakery and abuse of power.

Bio metric passports next which will be necessary to carry by law when travelling on public transport. The abuses of basic rights will then really start to get chipped away when the police and power freaks are let loose with that.

Name sir, id sir, attending a demo sir, please sign the subversive register sir, asbo next week sir, hand in your passport to the police sir, stay at home sir or its prison for you sir............... :ph43r:

That's what I meant. I read Nineteen Eighty-Four recently and I agree that it is unlikely that it will ever happen to that extent, unless some future government, to quote O'Brien from the book, 'knows what they are doing.'

I meant it as more of a comment on how things will continue to go if the public don't stick up for themselves rather than a realistic description of today's society. The foundations are being laid.

Ingsoc is doubleplusungood, I think you will agree.

And for you doublethinkers out there: Oldthink is goodthink.

Yep, I love the way you always get called "sir" and "madam" when you're being treated like tench.

I'm going to get very sociologist-y here but the philosophy behind CCTV, taking people's DNA and all the rest of that bollocks is the outdated Benthamite idea (Jeremy Bentham, 18th Century philosopher whose ideas were used as justification for the introduction of the workhouses) that people will behave how you want if you make the punishment for not behaving how you want severe enough.

Cameras are just a threat and a substitute for the real physical threat of arrest - step out of line and we'll put the boot in. Which in theory, and in certain contexts in practice, works well. The problem with blanket CCTV coverage, however, is that the only people it "persuades" against committing crimes are the people very unlikely to do so in the first place.

For example, there must be countless times when I have passed a little old bloke who walks with a stick on an empty streets with and without cameras. As a young and (by the standards of our great nation) fairly athletic 22yo man I am potentially perfectly capable of punching him in the face, kicking him in the crutch a couple of times to immobilise him and nicking anything he has on him, including his stick, just for a laugh and so it's harder for him to get anyone to chase after me. That I (and 95% of people) have never done that and never will is because it's evil, cowardly, against all the values we are taught by parents, religion, school etc. not because there's a greater chance I may be recognised, caught and punished.

The vast majority of crimes - by which I mean things like rapes and robberies, not pissing in an alleyway after a night out or standing in front of your seat at football matches - are committed by a small minority of people who make a deliberate choice to live that way, or know nothing else, and accept time in prison as a part of life. They just don't give a sh*t and never will; people can put up as many cameras as they like, put them in jail as much as they like and the moment they're out they'll just carry on. For them, all you can do is keep them from ruining everyone else's time as much as you can. Hence moreorless the same crime rates that we've always had, but with an ever-increasing number of people as wary and hostile to the police as they are to crime (which everyone is sh*t scared of thanks to the Daily Mail and the rest of that crap, even though there isn't that much more than there ever was either).

There's all manner of "positive" action that can be taken to reduce crime, reducing social inequalities, addressing faults in the education system etc. etc. but all the incessant culture of surveillance and control in this country will achieve is an unnecessarily alienated and resentful populace. But hey, we're English - all we'll do is moan our f*cking boxes off and then let the state do whatever it wants :rolleyes:

Lawnmower Man, I must say that that is one of the best pieces of writing that I've read for a while. Agree 100%.