Happy Land 2

[AxeMental]

http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/9281 ... 12.article

Figures it would be Daley.


Has this form of monitoring been brought before the Supreme Court, hell does anyone even care enough to file a law suite? Its one thing for a grocery store to record its customers, another for a govt. to watch "trouble areas" to cetch crimes, but to monitor all areas (with low or no crime) in a uniform way is something I didn't expect to see here for a few more years.

I tell yah, before the end of the decade I'll bet we see cameras in homes to preven damestic abuse. I mean why not? You have kids, a parent who's suspected.

P&P, do you think the cameras in England have made crime less common, or do criminals just adapt?

[TRP]

This is why in generations to come, space colonization will be our descendants' salvation. Whenever an area of our globe became too restrictive, people sought a place with more freedom. Well, there's nowhere left to run, so our descendants will eventually just have to leave for New Plymouth Rock.

For now, be happy. Not that the modern world doesn't have its issues, some quite significant, but overall, you're still living in one of Earth's greatest eras.

[PapersAndPaychecks]

P&P, do you think the cameras in England have made crime less common, or do criminals just adapt?

So you know, I'm a consultant to a local government in Great Britain (specifically Hertfordshire County Council). Presently I'm on secondment working with their Crime and Drugs Strategy Unit.

The fact is that you can't understand crime in the UK without understanding the drugs market, and vice versa.

In terms of acquisitive crime (which includes most home invasions and crimes of property), the vast majority is committed by a very few people. They're the PPO's (Priority Prolific Offenders) and these people have, on average, a crack or heroin habit which costs them about £200 a day.

Because they don't get good prices from their fences, they have to steal about £700 worth of stuff in order to get £200 in cash by the time their dealer comes round to visit them in the afternoon. They generally don't care what they do in order to get that money. Usually they'll cause other damage in addition to stealing (broken windows and stuff) so the real cost to society of a PPO's drug habit is about £350,000 a year. That translates to about half a million dollars per PPO, so PPO's account for the vast majority of crimes of acquisition in the UK. *

As you can imagine, cameras do absolutely nothing to discourage PPOs and they have zero effect on that area of crime.

Other problem crimes, apart from acquisitive crime, are crimes of violence and anti-social behaviour.

Those are mostly related to young people, and in that case the related drug is usually alcohol. Some gang of youths gets drunk and decides to go out and redecorate a few walls in spraypaint and then give someone a Chelsea Smile; this happened to a friend of mine when she was about 26. (She's had plastic surgery since but you can't repair that kind of damage completely.)

Cameras have a noticeable impact on that kind of crime: They make the criminals move somewhere else. The crime still usually happens, though.

Cameras do help with crimes of opportunity, and they do help people to protect themselves.

Women who're out at night, for example, are well advised to hang around near a camera while they wait for their taxi. The risk that she'll be raped or mugged drops hugely if the criminal knows there's a camera.

But personally, I'm cynical about cameras: I think that the cameras aren't about crime. I think they're about fear of crime. If the public see cameras around, they think they're safer and they think the politicians and the police are doing something proactive to reduce crime in their area.
_________________________________________________

* Incidentally, catching these people is actually relatively easy, because they're desperate and not thinking straight so they commit stupid crimes in a stupid way. The problem is that if you catch them, then all that happens is that the dealers drop the street price of crack for a week or so, and all of a sudden there's a whole new crop of drug users committing a whole new lot of offences.

You can also catch the dealers, although this is a lot more effort. The problem is that if you catch them, then all that happens is you get a lot of suddenly very desperate junkies, which leads to a rise in the street price of crack for a week until new dealers step in to fill the gap.

So you have to try to catch the dealers and the users at the same time. It's no easy feat.

The solution's reasonably obvious, isn't it? But the right wing always blocks it when the subject comes up.

[northrundicandus]

The solution's reasonably obvious, isn't it?

Yes. Kill them all. Dealers, Junkies, the whole bit.




Of course, that's way too simplistic, and not just at all. So if other readers can't handle sarcasm (I know P&P can) then bugger off.

[AxeMental]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasgow_smile

I never heard of this. Pretty f...ing sick. I'm sorry for your friends missfortune, and hope she recovers mentally and physically.

[northrundicandus]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasgow_smile

I never heard of this. Pretty f...ing sick. I'm sorry for your friends missfortune, and hope she recovers mentally and physically.

That is some sick crap. I'll all for Judge Dredding the bastards who inflict such horrors. No whiny "liberal" claptrap from me on that account.

[PapersAndPaychecks]

I'm sorry for your friends missfortune, and hope she recovers mentally and physically.

Oh, this was about ten years ago. She's long since recovered mentally, although she's never going to be pretty.

[TRP]

Why cameras would not deter most crimes in the U.S.

Working full time at a juvenile detention center, I get to see many of the up and comers every day. Now, I don't know if this is a universal problem, but it's a problem in the U.S., in that, in most cases, juvenile offenders tend to be insane or retarded. Now, there are more politically correct ways to put it, but that's pretty much the barebones truth. Mentally retarded offenders tend to be mildly to moderately so. There's nothing you can do really to change this condition, so we try to treat their responses. Changing behavior for the insane is a little easier, but only marginally. The point to bringing up the insanity and retardation issue is to note that these youth usually lack the cognitive skill that would be necessary to make the connection that their actions would be on candid camera. Cameras are only a deterrent if the potential criminal is aware of the camera and also cares that the camera is present. This sort of dovetails in with P&P's point, in that, substance abusers more or less fall into the insane category.

Cameras would only deter criminals with functional cognitive skills, something lacking in most juvenile offenders. I can't with absolutely surety extrapolate this to adult offenders, but, as a rule, adult offenders come from juvenile offenders.

Also, how many convenience store robbery, and other similar, videos have we all seen on television? Certainly, most criminals know that nearly every store uses video surveillance, and this does not seem to deter them.

[T. Foster]

So, are gangs of drunk/high youths running around committing mayhem and assaulting people at random for jollies actually a common occurence in England? Because, honest to goodness, that's not a problem in the USA. Gang violence over here is overwhelming directed against rival gangs, not against the general population.

[TRP]

So, are gangs of drunk/high youths running around committing mayhem and assaulting people at random for jollies actually a common occurence in England? Because, honest to goodness, that's not a problem in the USA. Gang violence over here is overwhelming directed against rival gangs, not against the general population.

There's a nice sized turf war going in New Orleans. New gangs, mostly Mexicans, moved into the vacuum created by Katrina. The older gangs are returning, and they're all fighting over fewer customers. Cameras would stop these guys about as much as just asking them nicely to quit. Most of the turf battles are occuring in neighborhoods where the cameras would probably be shot out the same day they were installed anyway.

[Mythmere]

So, are gangs of drunk/high youths running around committing mayhem and assaulting people at random for jollies actually a common occurence in England? Because, honest to goodness, that's not a problem in the USA. Gang violence over here is overwhelming directed against rival gangs, not against the general population.

There's a nice sized turf war going in New Orleans. New gangs, mostly Mexicans, moved into the vacuum created by Katrina. The older gangs are returning, and they're all fighting over fewer customers. Cameras would stop these guys about as much as just asking them nicely to quit. Most of the turf battles are occuring in neighborhoods where the cameras would probably be shot out the same day they were installed anyway.

Another example of illegal aliens taking jobs away from citizens.

[JRMapes]

Oh gawd Matt--

that killed me...

[PapersAndPaychecks]

So, are gangs of drunk/high youths running around committing mayhem and assaulting people at random for jollies actually a common occurence in England? Because, honest to goodness, that's not a problem in the USA. Gang violence over here is overwhelming directed against rival gangs, not against the general population.

Edit: Changing my answer because the first answer didn't actually address the question. Duh!

Non-gang-related assaults are probably at a higher level in the UK than the US, yes.

[AxeMental]

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/ ... 948209.ece

"There are an estimated 4.2 million CCTV cameras in Britain: one for every 14 people"

Isn't this overkill?