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Orwell's 1984. Glasgow's 1994? Closed Circuit Television in Glasgow What is it? By the end of this summer four square miles of the city centre will be under constant 24 hour surveillance. An area from Glasgow Cross to Charing Cross will be dotted with 32 cameras. These will produce over 5000 hours of footage each week of Glaswegians going about their everyday lives. The cameras will be monitored by specially trained disabled civilians from a bank of screens at Steward Street Police Station. What will it cost? The estimated cost of the project for installation and the first three years of running costs is 1 million pounds. Who is funding it? Half of the money is coming from private businesses in the city centre through voluntary donations. The rest is coming from the public sector - Strathclyde Regional Council and Glasgow District Council. What is it for? "The Cameras have been installed to protect valuable businesses" Glasgow Chief SuperIntendent Gordon Carmicheal. Daily Record 14/1/94 "The Cameras are not there to spy on people but to protect people" Strathclyde Regional Councillor James Jennings Scotsman 16/7/93 "The Cameras do not just make sense. It makes business sense." Caroline Durkan Glasgow Development Agency (GDA). Herald 9/12/93 Although there is confusion whether the cameras are to protect property or people, the main stated aim of the project is to deter crime in the city centre and to make it "a safer place for shoppers and shop owners, families, women and other law abiding citizens" Strathclyde Chief Constable Leslie Sharp Herald 22/10/93 It will also be used to deter soliciting and to film kerb crawlers (Glaswegian 19/8/93). It is clear that the police have complete power to use and abuse the technology as they wish. The films could be used for any purpose whatsoever, from filming public leafleting to filming people on marches and demonstrations. Once the technology is in place it can be used for whatever the police want. How long will video footage be kept? According to Caroline Durkan of the Glasgow Development Agency, "footage will be retained for one month then wiped unless required for evidence of information" Herald 9/12/93 This is obviously vague and open to interpretation and abuse by the police. Who will have access to and control of video footage? "Recorded tapes will be the property of the chief constable and will be used only be Strathclyde Police to deter and detect criminals" Caroline Durkan (GDA) Herald 9/12/93 The above statement was enough to convince doubting Strathclyde Regional Councillors that the video cameras would not be an abuse of civil liberties. Such unlimited powers should obviously because for concern, not confidence, in the system. A U.S. Lawyer quoted in the Scotsman 31/8/93 states "the person who controls the technology controls the use made of it" Background Since the mid 1980's there has been a rapid growth in English towns and cities installing closed circuit television systems. In 1986 Bournemouth installed video cameras along its seafront and claimed that in its first year of use the bill for vandalism dropped from 220 000 to 36 000 pounds (Scotsman 31/8/93). Newcastle installed a 400 000 system and claimed there was a 13% reduction in crime in the first two months of operation (Guardian 13/5/93). Hexham installed a video system and claimed there was a "significant reduction in crime by 97% in areas covered by cameras (Scotsman 30/11/93). Kings Lynn in the Midlands (of England) installed cameras and claimed that thefts from cars dropped by 97% and car crimes in general by 91% (Guardian 31/8/93). These statistics appear impressive and have led to many Scottish towns installing or planning to install camera systems. The most publicised case is Airdrie where it is claimed crime fell by 75% in its first six months of operation (Scotsman 31/8/93). Other Scottish towns such as East Kilbride, Bathgate and Kirkcaldy have installed cameras and more schemes are being planned from Dumfries to Inverness. It is against this backdrop of a growing "camera culture" that Glasgow is planning the biggest, most sophisticated and most expensive system yet to be put into operation in any "British" town or city. The British Security Industry Association (BSIA) say there are around 200 000 closed circuit television systems in the country and that the BSIA firms that supplied them did business worth 57 million in 1992 (Guardian, 13/5/93). It is now Big Business protecting Big Business in "Britain". It is hardly surprising so much effort is being put into convincing us video cameras are a cure all for crime. But are they really? Arguments for and against Closed Circuit Television Deterrent The major argument used in favour of the cameras is that they deter crime. They may deter certain categories of crime but they do not deter neither the drunken nor the determined "criminal". The person who commits a crime when drunk is likely to do it anyway. A person determined to commit a crime will just go to greater lengths to avoid being caught. Carole Euart, from the Scottish Council of Civil Liberties (SCCL), stated "people have been watched by cameras for many years in banks and building societies, but armed robberies haven't declined. This proves cameras are not necessarily a deterrent - they won't change peoples fundamental behaviour" (Glaswegian 13/1/94). Detection Another argument used is that even if people do commit a crime they are far more likely to be caught and therefore found "guilty" and "punished". This is probably true, although people determined to commit a crime are likely to adopt more sophisticated methods to hide their identity in an area they know is covered by cameras. However, unless every street in every town has a camera they are more likely to go to an area not covered by cameras. Displacement Figures show that crime does not simply disappear into thin air. Instead it reappears somewhere else. In Airdrie although crime fell in the town centre "the number of serious crimes for the division as a whole went up from 113 to 135" (Scotland on Sunday,12/12/93). In Hexham, although crime in the area covered by the cameras fell by 17% elsewhere in Hexham it rose by 12% (Scotsman,30/11/93). In the Herald (11/8/93) an editor of a Glasgow community newspaper asks "Is it acceptable to the business community and municipal mediocrities in George Square who have not built a house in 14 years that as long as robbery and violence are confined to the schemes then all is well?" The main argument against cameras whatever the statistics show is that "people should not be observed by institutions of the state as they go about their everyday business (Carole Euart, SCCL, Glaswegian 13/1/94). This is the main objection that we as anarchists should put across to other people.