DelBoy
Authorities often do after the event, but what about prevention in the first place given all the signs and warnings? Whether the West are doing a 'good job' internationally by creating hatred in Muslim communities is more open to debate
Having been caught on speed cameras twice when not intentionally speeding I have some sympathy for this view, but perhaps I might feel differently if I wasn't a driver and the mother of a child. Tax infringements are again a double edged sword, are you not in favour of the surveillance of drug pushers, muggers, burglars, deliberate tax avoidance and benefit cheats, since this potentially reduces the pressure to increase taxes and reduces crime for law abiding people? Perhaps a camera has prevented you getting robbed, you will never know.
If we take London as an area with high surveillance
- Almost all crime categories (except Trident gun crime) are showing decreases with total notifiable offences as a whole under 900,000 for the first time in the last 10 years.
- The overall sanction detection rate stands at 25%, above the MPA target of 24% and 4% up on the previous year.
- Robberies have not been this low since 2000/01 and have declined by almost 20% since 2006/07 (but business robbery has increased slightly).
- Gun enabled crime is now the lowest since 2000/0 although the MPA 5% reduction target has been missed.
- Residential burglary offences are down slightly on last year and at their lowest level since 1998/99.
Of course we could argue these figures are only reported crime but
perceived crime for the UK as a whole seems to be level or dropping
Sorry to be so slow in responding Perseus, but here goes:-
Re opening comment - I referred only to USA not 'the west'.
However, my Orwellian complaint regarding this government is not directed at CCTV etc, as you seem to conclude, but at the total increasing authoritarian control they seek to impose.
Who is allowed to break in to your house?
It may sound suprising, but according to a 2007 report by Harry Snook, a barrister for the Centre for Policy Studies, there are 266 powers allowing officials to enter your home, and not all require a warrant.
They have sold us down the river to the EU on all counts, including the refusal of the promised referendum.
They have divided our society by creating seperatist multicultural enclaves. (not to be confused with multi-racialism).
They have lost control of our borders completely, and landed us with untold numbers of illegal immigrants (they cannot say how many because they do not know), and have failed to cap legal immigration in such a small and crowded country. They have done nothing to control the acceptance of dangerously alien cultures into an already explosive situation.
They have supervised what looks very much like the break-up of The Union.
They have ruined our pension system, and landed masses of our pensioners into poverty.
They are dismissive of our wishes and concerns, or at least were until the latest election results.
They cheat on official crime figures constantly, leaving out vast swaves of negative info. The police are in the position of avoiding responding to a great many requests of quite serious crime, and it seems that more and more are not even included as worthy of police time.
This is not the country they inherited, and I am sad that we may have lost it forever. This is why I warn Americans at election time regarding promises of random 'Change'; my advice would be to stick to the tried and tested, and let political evolution ease its way steadily.
I am in no way against CCTV, but we are now long past that point, and well into much more specific intrusion, into our homes etc.
Regarding improvement in crime rates, as you pointed to, I am afraid I cannot accept them. I recall being 100% safe walking anywhere In London and elsewhere, and I spring from some of the most devastatingly dangerous places we now have. They used to be poor but terrific to live in.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/labour/1576068/Jacqui-Smith-Scared-to-walk-alone-at-night.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1556148/Teenage-violence-Life-at-the-sharp-end.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1546085/The-vagaries-of-UK-knife-crime-statistics.html