# Transcript

JOHN.

Andrew Puddephat notes how the British government has been reluctant to impose statutory regulations.

ANDREW.

The Council of Europe agreed a regulation in 1987 which was meant to control all forms of electronic surveillance equipment used by police forces throughout Europe, and essentially it's said that every form of electronic surveillance equipment should be the subject of statutory regulation by Parliament, our government wouldn't go along with that, said it wasn't prepaed to comply with that provision. Now until our government's prepared to give those guarantees, that it's not prepaed to collect that information and store it, people walking up and down this country have got a lot to be afraid of in terms of who's filming them, what the purpose of that film is for, and who's keeping that information, I think we're right to be concerned and the people of this country are right to be concerned about the unregulated growth of video surveillance.

JOHN.

And both Bob Pattison and Richard Thomas feel that whilst the polices use of CCTV is perfectly satisfactory, there may still be some legitimate concerns about its uncontrolled use by private operators ..

BOB.

Our concern is where CCTV is monitored by perhaps security companies who aren't able to vet the stuff, perhaps are er filmed by the owner of the building, and and maybe it captures members of the public doing things which were not legal or perhaps unsavoury or or they would be worried about otl1er people seeing, there is a concern fom some of us that CCTV will be used by people like Special Branch. Our system is not, it's an overt system in any case, so the people know if the cameras ae looking at them which is a major safeguard for the public, but the system is not used by Special Branch.. We discussed this with Special Branch during the the planning stages, and we made it known we would not welcome any approach for the cameras, they have not made any approach.. I think they're the best way I can put it it's a gentlemen's agreement, and I think the police officers who are in Special Branch recognise the benefits to society as a whole in in CCTV being used as both a crime reduction tool and erm an ev evidence gathering system for criminal cases, such as burglaries and assaults, er is such that it isn't worth jeopardising it for something else.

RICHARD.

I understand the thinking of these civil liberties groups and and the people who worry about this and that is this, if the police set out to survey you or me, or to survey a certain area to look specifically for something and then we have to have a level of authorisation usually at chief officer level to say we can do it. If a supermarket wants to have that level of surveillance on its staff or on you and I shopping in there there's no check on that Technology will never get rid of crime, I think we'd be particularly naive and we would be undervaluing the criminal society in this country if we thought we were gonna beat them with technology, however we can make it more difficult for them, we can make them work harder for their money, and I think technology does that I think technology has helped in house burglary, it could possibly help more, there are areas you could move into I mean you could have a video camera inside and outside your house. Whether you want to go to those lengths I suspect it would assist you. Violent crime is in families, so technology's not gonna help that. So, I think in the long term yes it w it can help prevent, it can help detect, does help detect, it will never eradicate crime but it may reduce it in certain areas to acceptable levels.

JOHN.

Bob Pattison also acknowledges that despite the benefits for policing and control of some crime, the wider implications of the new technologies do pose a dilemma for society.

BOB.

If I had CCTV on a lamp post outside my house, and when I went to bed at night I knew the police and I say the police, were monitoring my garden, the car parked on my drive, then I would sleep that much more soundly, cos I know the chances of the house being burgled or the car being stolen are much reduced. And if it does happen, hopefully the evidence is there to support the prosecution.. If that camera though the following afternoon, is watching me as I cut the lawn, or if I'm having a drink or a barbeque in the garden with friends, then I would feel very uncomfortable, and that really is is the dilemma for society. There's one or two areas unfortunately in this force, where the public are asking for CCTV in their street I think that's more measure of the quality of their life than the appropriateness of CCTV. If the lesser of two evils is to lose some of that privacy, by having a police monitored CCTV scheme looking towards your house or into your garden, is less than the fear of being the victim of a burglary or a theft or an assault, then it's dmm1 shame.

JOHN

Andrew Puddephat goes furthur, and argues that the use of CCTV is not really about controlling crime at all. It does not tackle all crime, and has no relevance for addressing the cause of crime.

ANDREW.

In America they're now spending more money on prisons than they're spending on public education, and they're locked up over one million of their own citizens, and young black men in America have something like a one in three chance of going to prison some time in their life now, this is where we're heading unless we step back and say that real security isn't gonna be provided by cameras, probably isn't going to be provided by actually more policemen on the streets because you'll never have enough policemen to police every comer. It's gonna be provided by changing the underlying conditions of society that give rise to the kinds of crime that we've all we've all got good reason to fear. W we're never gonna have a position where you're going to have blanket video surveillance, because it's far too expensive. So video surveillance will always be selective, and it's likely to concentrate on the principal thoroughfares and high streets, the areas where the big shops are, because the the large stores put the pressure on. Video surveillance is not gonna be up the side streets where the muggings and the robberies and the violence takes place, so we need to be clear about that it is not the solution to those kinds of crime. It is a response to the desire to create spaces which are monitored, controlled, and regulated, which although they may be public spaces in the sense that the public has access to them, they take on an increasingly private character. The problem with the crime debate in this com1try and the way we're tackling crime policy, is it's not being looked at essentially on a rational basis, we're not looking at the causes of crime seriously, we're not addressing why crime's gone up two and half times since 1980 as it has done.. We're not looking at why crime rates rise and fall, we're not looking at the difference between crimes of violence, the patterns within crimes of violence, and the patterns between crimes of theft. We don't look at who commits crime, in fact it's committed by young men between the ages of sixteen to twenty four, and it's clearly something's bad going badly wrong in our education system that's that's producing people who are increasingly taking to the streets. We're not addressing the culture of personal acquisitiveness, and the way that personal worth is increasingly measured by how many consumer goods you've got. We're not addressing a number of factors which give rise to crime which is probably the most complex of all social phenomena. Instead we're relying on a very crude approach, a a sort of a preventative market approach based on surveillance equipment and burglar alanns and so on, which is fuelled and encouraged by the private sector, because there is a lot of money being made in this.