Londoners are seen on the city’s vast amalgam of surveillance cameras an average of 300 times a day. Which means that the terrorists behind yesterday’s bombings almost certainly knew they’d be caught on tape — and went ahead with their attacks anyway.
Before Britain began installing its network of 4.2 million spycams, before spycams were even invented, backers of surveillance were arguing that people are less likely to do horrible things when they know they’re being watched. That’s the reason Jeremy Bentham in 1791 proposed in 1787 a “Panopticon” — a jail in which the warden could always see what his prisoners were doing. It’s the reason Chicago is linking together more than two thousand cameras into a single surveillance network.
But whether bad guys actually act differently under watch is debatable. After dozens of studies of England’s Close Circuit Television spycam system, there is “very little substantive research evidence to suggest that CCTV works,” the U.K.’s National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders reports.
In America, some cities have reported short-term crime drops after the cameras have been installed. But English studies suggest that these dips are temporary, at best. Why? My guess is that crooks get used to the spycams — and, after a while, realize that no one’s watching, at least in real time. There are just too many cameras to keep track of. And the average monitor jockey can only watch six to eight video feeds, for about twenty minutes, before he starts to lose focus. It makes for an awfully weak deterrent.
Now, there’s certainly some forensic value to having all those electronic eyes installed. As the AP, among many others, have noted, “the British capital’s ubiquitous closed-circuit TV cameras may hold the key to determine who was behind Thursday’s series of terrorist strikes.” But as a preventive measure, the 7/7 attacks have shown the spycams to be flimsy, at best.
If there’s a hope for surveillance-as-deterrent, it may lie in places like Chicago. Instead of forcing squads of monitor jockeys to make sense of confusing, overlapping video feeds, the city is installing video understanding algorithms into its spycam network. Come too close to a restricted government building, leave a package on an El platform, or even hang out for too long on a ghetto street corner and – smile! – you’re on Criminal Camera.
But it’s going to take years for the software to get installed. And no one’s really sure whether it can work on a massive, city-wide scale. For now, we’re stuck with the same old systems — and the same old results.
almost certainly knew they’d be caught on tape — and went ahead with their attacks anyway.
You can cut the almost out of that. On my daily short walk round London I tried to count the cameras once and managed 47. Sure I missed some.
Yeahbut. You cannot look at the question in isolation. If upon review of the tapes there is in fact useful evidence found, and this results in a capture and — if such a thing exists in Europe — a conviction, much less possibly other implications (i.e. with respect to a sponsoring state), then will we be so quick to say these are the “same old results”?
I’m not saying that will happen. But isn’t it premature to say it won’t?
And, by the way, how many terrorist attacks _were_ deterred by the cameras? We don’t know. How can we come to a conclusion about a policy or system meant to make it harder for rational people to commit an act when we know there is an element that will always be reckless — does that mean there is never deterrence?
Based on my crack about Euro-justice above, I think that is the real problem. Being caught, much less after the fact, is not a particularly high risk in a system where punishment is inherently regarded as cruel and inhuman. That is why criminals don’t mind taking their chances.
Isn’t this a bit of a straw man argument here? The only way current video surveillance technology could prevent this sort of terrorist attack would be if it were used on an ongoing basis to track already-identified suspects.
From what I’ve read, British government sources have now stated that the attacks were not carried out by any of the usual suspects, all of whom were supposedly already under surveillance. Perhaps if any of *them* had attempted anything, the London CCTV net would have enabled preventative action.
Besides, for suicide bombers, cameras are just more witnesses to their ‘martyrdom’..
Though IDing them after the fact may help in the rooting-out of their associates and cobelievers.
Still, I’m sure Scotland Yard has a very good idea of who was involved, who inspired them, etc. but were prevented or hindered from acting by certain Law Lords and politicians bent on autocastration for the sake of political correctness..
The cams can help track known suspects, helping law enforcement keep tabs on them. And they can certainly be of great assistance to the post-incident investigation. But they cannot “prevent” anything.
They’re a useful tool for the law enforcement part of the war against terror, but that part is mostly reactionary. Just recognize the tool for what it is and what it can do.
A camera can only prevent crime if the criminal sees the consequences of being caught as being greater than the perceived benefit of carrying out their action.
When dealing with a group prone to suicidal attacks, you can see how this approach becomes ineffectual.
If the acts were committed by a group that valued not-sacrificing themselves to kill and maim others, then the cameras–or rather the threat of them, might have some weight.
put the cameras on the web ….
As an employee of a company that does video surveillance/security, cameras are not really supposed to prevent crime, only to figure out what happened after the fact in order to catch the criminals or for use as lessons learned. Any sort of crime surpression is completely an added benefit. Unless there are users that are alerted through various algorithms to monitor a certain video feed, it’s useless to have someone monitor these cameras 24/7. To paraphrase an old adage:
Locks are only useful in keeping the honest people honest.
I don’t see any tigers around. Would you like to buy my tiger-repelling rock?
Seems a little research and scientific method is in order. Somebody ought to be able to figure out before and after numbers, areas where criminals knew there are no cameras v. next door where there were, etc. e.g. what was the rate of shoplifting before and after? Pickpockets? Graffitti? IRA attacks? Compare this with the expense of guards and police walking a beat. And the opportunity cost (where the money or the people would be otherwise invested).
I wouldn’t be so quick to discount automation.
Good Evening Friends,
If I may, I would like to put out a reminder that this is a public site and we are not the only one who read the “Comment” area.
Dicussing the events that took place in London yesterday and other similar events might be some what fool hardy. Any dicussion of where and how security works or the mechanics of bomb making might be taken out of contex and could cause some embarassing problems.
In everybody’s interest I think we should “Cool It” on these topics.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
“Stewart’s Platoon”
Too imply that surveillance cams failed to prove their worth here is like saying that having armed police officers on guard in the World Trade Center failed to stop insane cult zealots, so lets stop using them. A foolish conclusion.
The fact is that cameras do a combination of deterrence, apprehension of criminals, detection of more subtle kinds of criminal activity, public education of dangerous acts and tactics and many other public services.
Cameras can stake places out without fatigue or the depletion of armed force available. They can be linked and educated to perform very sophisticated kinds of scene assessments and recorded access. They do their assigned duty without corruption or self interest.
They are an irreplaceable part of law enforcement and security maintenace in both public and private sectors.
1. The cameras can (at least conceivably) assist in the capture of the suspects once they’re identified. Assuming they intend another act of terrorism, then that’s at least one bit of prevention.
2. I suspect that criminals aren’t yet very aware of how effective the cameras may be in spotting their crime and providing damning evidence against them before a judge or jury. A high profile arrest to two would go long way toward their efficacy as a deterrent.
I see that people have been discussing how cameras and the like might affect terrorists.
I would like to remind you that the general public are able to read this website!
Dicussing the events that took place in London yesterday and other similar events might be some what fool hardy. Any dicussion of where and how security works or the mechanics of what terrorists do might …
… lead the general public to know things that terrorists already have studied up on …
… to be somewhat more able to recognize terrorists or even to vote some leaders out of office for someone who has a clue and is better at catching or killing terrorists.
So let’s all just “cool it” before people start to think.
The cameras are a lot better than setting on your hands and waiting for some one to kill you because you have done nothing but talk.
We need a Surveillance enhanced decoy regonition system. For instance a human purposely avoiding a camera will look away in another direction, this is were the actual camera should be to get a clear shot. Also when this happens it registers them as a possible. If they attempt to avoid all the cameras, they are paranoid and up to something? Thus creating an anomaly and registering as a possible. Perhaps a thought?
What good are cameras, except for hindsight, it did not stop them. It may prevent a future attack, but there are more bad guys even if we catch a few assistants to this event. Meanwhile playing the video tapes on TV only gives one the impression that they cannot prevent attacks and emboldens those who wish us ill in the future. Video feed without action is simply lots of data collection for no reason. If you are not going to use the data in real time to prevent events, why bother? Now someone will debate me here because they sell CCTV systems and indeed they are protecting thier interests, fine. But the truth is without advanced enhanced technologies cameras alone will not prevent attacks. The costs to Mass Transit for elevated security and labor, systems and installation is prohibitive as Mass transit systems operate on economies of scale and when you increase costs, ridership goes down and the thing does not work. I.e. Toll Ways in the US, EuroTunnel, BART in SF, MetroRail in LA, Amtrak, I can go on; email if interested in complete study.
It is foolish and short-sighted to expect the cameras to deter terrorism, just as it is unrealistic to expect to be able to prevent all terrorist acts.
In my opinion, the cameras have shown their worth by positively identifying the perpetrators, proving to their friends, family and the world at large that these were “Jihadists” and Muslim extremists, not Mossad, CIA, IRA, ETA, anyone but… et al. The Moslim world can’t hide behind the lies and conspiracy theories this time, and I think the wake-up call will be effective.
Islamic terrorism will end when it becomes a universally unacceptable thing for fervent believers to contemplate. That development should have a ripple effect on the other terrorist belief systems of our time.
Byron, and Very Concerned Guy — this is just us people. I don’t want to burst any bubbles but I don’t think anyone here is privy to classified information nor, with all due respect, is thinking of anything the AQ boys haven’t thought of.
I hate privacy too, let’s put cameras in TV’s and computer monitors. That way, if someone is looking at kiddie porn, you will see the excitement in their face and know to arrest them.
They could program an algorithem that tells the computer when you are late for work. Just think, if the cameras are hooked into the employee database the cameras could automatically fire people, which would save the management the trouble of doing it and save the company millions in wasted man hours. They could even get rid of management. Let the cameras and databases take charge of industry.
The algorithem could be programmed to look for muslims and give them special careful scrutiny. Imagine, the camera sees a muslim go to home depot. It could remember what he purchased and how much of it. If this same muslim has purchases lenghts of pipe with end caps and fertilizer, the camera could call 9/11 automatically and he could be arrested.
Think of how well the courts would work! You wouldn’t need warrants anymore because if you have video of someone’s life from birth to death, I’m sure there is bound to be something in there that could be construed as probable cause.
Now, if only these cameras were equipped with microphones, then you could truly have a panopticon. Imagine that, total surveillence all the time, all under the watchful eyes of a machine. Still think the matrix is just a fantasy?
Our stupid little town – always wanting to be like the big boys – shelled out a whopping $2 million for cams on our two highways so they could supposedly assist in traffic flow.
The commute here from anywhere is less then 15 minutes on a bad day.
They could have done this for free by asking people to call in with road conditions. People love doing that.