Graham Stewart

A criminal waste

Graham Stewart

With an estimated one surveillance camera in Britain for every 14 Britons, reality television has never been more invasive. The reason Big Brother has been allowed to watch its citizens so comprehensively in this way rests with the claim that CCTV is a protection rather than an intrusion. Only the guilty should fear the all-seeing eye. Those with nothing to hide have nothing to worry about. It is tempting to imagine this is what Calvin’s Geneva might have been like if only the technology had been the equal of the theology.

Except, of course, the inner cities of 21st- century Britain are patently not where the Godly Elect hang out on a Saturday night. The creation of this surveillance society shows scant sign of making us conform to the orderly sobriety of the Swiss. Indeed, the extent to which we have come to accept constant monitoring may be part of the reason it has so little effect on our behaviour.

If, for example, the CCTV trained upon Mr Suresh Kumar’s tiny corner shop in Plaistow has failed to deter any of the 200 raids upon it by robbers in the past decade, it is reasonable to question what effect such surveillance has when operating in a far less confined or well-lit area.

As Ross Clark argues in this marvellous and timely book, such technology offers doubtful security. Violent crime has continued to rise since security cameras became more ubiquitous than litter bins. CCTV infrequently leads to prosecutions. Even in those minority of cases where the police think the video evidence is good enough to be brought before a court, the law usually decides otherwise. Three-quarters of such attempts are ruled inadmissible because the picture quality is too poor to prove conclusive.

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