
Cory Doctorow: Why CCTV has failed to deter criminals - revorad
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/aug/17/why-cctv-does-not-deter-crime
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alan-crowe
Cory needs to step back and see the big picture and the long timescale.

In any big city there is continual low-level agro between the aresholes who
get drunk and break things and the decent folk who clean up the vomit and do
the repairs. It is not black and white; it is common for people to change
sides as they get older, or in response to becoming parents. Some persons have
a foot in both camps, especially during the transition.

There is a second sense in which it is not black and white. The agro is
quantitative. If the bus shelter gets smashed once every few years, it is
sufficient to just repair it. If it gets smashed every saturday night, that
too expensive and more needs to be done.

There are the yobs with spray cans making the graffiti and the property owners
with the solvents and the origninal-colour paint getting rid of the graffiti.
There is a threshold. If the makers are persistent enough and frequent enough
the property owners become demoralized and give up. Then the graffiti makers
can move on to tag a new, pristine area.

There is a five year timescale on which the people who clean and mend become
demoralized if they are faced with too much cleaning and mending. There is a
thirty year, intergenerational timescale on which one attempts to bring up
ones children to be on the clean and mend side.

That is an uphill struggle, because, let's be honest, most neuro-typicals find
that getting drunk and smashing things is more fun.

Cory is focusing on the perpetrators. Does catching them and putting them in
prison for 6 months reform them? Maybe, maybe not. Other people get a 6 month
break from repairing the kicked-in door and cleaning up the vomit. That is
vital for moral, both to keep going on the cleaning and mending, and to keep
going on bringing up ones children to join the cleaning and mending team, and
in having credibility with ones children when one says that the cleaners and
menders are the good guys and the team to join.

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nodata
They don't provide a deterrent anymore because we forget they are there. They
don't work as a deterrent because the chances of being caught on CCTV are
slim.

But I'm not sure that this matters. I see CCTV more as evidence gathering
rather than crime prevention.

