Radio 2 in the Park 2024

[Guest]

Do you think they are a good thing or a bad one?

We have about 4.2 million CCTV cameras in Britain, monitoring towns and cities in an effort to tackle crime. But many people claim that CCTV cameras are an invasion of privacy and are not being used appropriately which has led many social commentators to claim that we now live in a 'surveillance society'.

What are your thoughts?

[DC]

good thing, there's nothing to worry about if you aren't doing anything wrong. plus it's a bonus if they help you find out the bastard who's scratched your car.

[E*F*4L]

everyone is now guilty until proven innocent, people following you about with absolutely no reason to do so & as for "they are there for your protection" rubbish !

crime doesn't stop because of a CCTV camera is put up in a trouble spot, it just gets moved along somewhere else & then a CCTV camera is put up there & so on its goes, people are very nieve if they think they are the solution a CCTV camera isn't going to stop someone getting stabbed to death in the street, or a woman attacked because the CCTV is either looking the other way or the offender won't get caught & if they did get caught nothing would happen to them anyway i terms of punishment.

i remember a story on the news where some bloke was being attacked in some high-street at night & the CCTV operator was watching on the TV screen & after a minute or so told his supervisor & they them informed the police, but because there wasn't enough police about to give assistance & the people were never caught.

all this "if you have nothing to hide" is a stupid thing to suggest, its not about stopping crime it's about creating jobs in the civil service & knowing what everyone is doing, its not being done for our benefit is theirs to get as much data as they can, there was less crime in the 50's & there were no CCTV about then, what they had instead was police actually doing a job, judges that sent people to prison for a proper jail term & prisons that can hold enough criminals.

of course the UK is a 'surveillance society' more like a police state where you cannot do anything with out being interfered with by the government.

no CCTV camera has ever prevented a crime from happening, & they never will.

[Sam]

no CCTV camera has ever prevented a crime from happening, & they never will.

Actually they have those talking cameras in Manchester(?) I saw a video on BBC news when they stopped a drunk person stealing a cone.

[E*F*4L]

Actually they have those talking cameras in Manchester(?) I saw a video on BBC news when they stopped a drunk person stealing a cone.

surely the crime was the workmen not finishing the job they had started.

[Antro]

they are good thing, in that they can be used as evidence for a lot of things. But it just really annoys me that i cant go to the shop without being watched by someone who sits in a room full of screens every day. It's as though everyone walking down the street is expected to comit a crime before they go home.

speed cameras are just as bad, its aparenly been proven that there are less accidents were there are no speed cameras because they just cause pile-ups. nobody can be trusted. the speed camera on the road near us usually ends up in peices or facing the wrong way because someone takes a baseball bat to it.

[Lucinda]

I was reading academic research on this topic earlier. It's related to my dissertation in a round-about way. Some people have started cycling in London because they want a way of getting about that doesn't involve being tracked, like you are if you use an Oyster card or drive into the Congestion Charging zone.

CCTV cameras don't bother me personally. A lot of the time there's no one watching anyway. They've installed a huge pole with spikes on with a CCTV camera near here and they gave us the number of the control room, I think the old people were getting scared by chavs. I don't agree that there was less crime in the 50s. The good old rose-tinted spectacles coming out there.

I mean, sure, some of what I was reading today was a bit worrying, but I do kind of like the idea that if I went missing then people would be able to find out where I'd been. If you don't want to be tracked, throw away your credit cards, loyalty cards and mobile phone and walk/cycle/use public transport while wearing a hat and dark glasses. Sorted. It's not quite Nineteen Eighty-Four yet.

[E*F*4L]

It's not quite Nineteen Eighty-Four yet.

nope its Nineteen Eighty-Three :x

[DC]

bowling for soup, 1985

[DarkAngelMJH]

As previously said they are good for tracking missing people and finsing out what happened. Plus for watching chavs and people robbing cars n such. They don't really bother me

[kitty]

no CCTV camera has ever prevented a crime from happening, & they never will.

I think they do act as a preventative measure- you're not likely to get raped or mugged in an area where there is high profile CCTV- I think they create safe zones, which can only be a positive thing.

[DaNNiP15]

I think they are good and all but some dont actually do much, like the one at my work shows still images and refreshes avery 10 secornds or something. which meant when something happened to me few years back, it didnt show on the cctv. luckily they are getting better ones soon. sometimes i think there should be more in parks ect cos if there isnt then thats where people are going to attack or something, surely? Then again in some places i think there ar too many... Im not sure what i think of them really.

[Timsk]

I'm not entirely comfortable with the thought of being potentially 'watched' wherever I go, but as someone else said if you're not doing something you shouldn't, where's the problem?

CCTV is often used to retrospectively assist in the prosecution of real wrong-doers, something particularly important in my working environment in the NHS.

My vote goes positive on this, although I don't actually like it - I see the good it can do.

[Guest]

I'm against CCTV cameras purely on principle. I understand that they are helpful in finding missing people and have proven to be successful in convicting people of violent crimes but such incidences are rare and the rarity of the situations in which they have proven to be worthy, I think, far outweighs the threat they pose to the public in reducing our individual privacy to zero. I don't think it's no longer outrageous to say the nation is edging further towards a police state. On the surface it may not resemble Orwell's Oceania quite yet but the required components necessary to construct a police state are amassing and I'm afraid I think it won't be too long before we're living the totalitarian nightmare.