CCTV

[BigMouth]

Money well spent if it improves safety and stops the mindless vandalism all too evident in the street IMHO. We have wasted much more on much less.

[Medziotojas]

I understand where you're coming from, but even if you are a law abiding citizen do you want your every move tracked. Between Google and the bank, "I am a number, not a free man". Iron Maiden antithesis

[Fjool]

Money well spent if it improves safety

It may well improve safety around the cameras but, once they're round the corner, they're no use at all. All they'll do is push antisocial behaviour into areas which don't have cameras and unless you start using hidden cameras, and the threat of hidden cameras, then the only alternative is to have cameras everywhere, which is impractical.

 

Did I hear correctly that Britain has more CCTV cameras per capita than any other nation? Wouldn't surprise me.

 

What's wrong with looking at the causes of the behaviour in the first place (address the drink culture for starters), rather than trying to use these expensive, ineffective and invasive technological solutions?

 

Using CCTV cameras to maintain public order is like trying to cure a broken leg by applying a sticking plaster.

[Styles]

Waste of money.

[Ghostrider]

£200,000. Well, yes, money well spent, in comparison to such things as the Clueless bridge crossing to Bressay so far, or the Good for the lads salmon investments that is.

 

Factoring in ongoing running/maintenance/eventual replacement costs, folk to monitor them (Red Alert: amateur curtain twitchers declared an endangered species, they've all turned pro in the Coonty Beeldins...), I do wonder just how long it would take to spend the same money if three regular Police each accompanied by a Special were to wander round the so-called "problem" areas on foot during the so-called "problem" hours. Granted I slept through major portions of maths classes, but my calculations suggest quite a few years....

 

Ahhhh....but of course....different budgets, different priorities. Typical public service red tape, filch a few quid here for this, a few there for that, the overall cost of any one thing gets murkier and murkier when it comes out of multiple purses for multiple reasons, so much easier to "massage" and double talk your way through "justifying" increases in funding and/or fudging your way through spending cuts.

[BigMouth]

Money well spent if it improves safety

 

...snip...What's wrong with looking at the causes of the behaviour in the first place (address the drink culture for starters), rather than trying to use these expensive, ineffective and invasive technological solutions?...snip...

 

 

Absolutely couldn't agree more here. Sadly its so hugely cool to get completely off your tits these days that I think that we need a huge mindset change, which is obviously not about to come quickly to these shores.

[Medziotojas]

It is possible to get "completely off your tits" and maintain your "cool". Again, similarly to points raised in the "Should drugs be legalised" thread, we're using Fjools' proverbial bandaid.

[Malcolm]

Surely the only people that would be really bothered by CCTV cameras are those that would be up to no good ! and lets face it, They are the ones that the cameras would be all about.

[Fjool]

Surely the only people that would be really bothered by CCTV cameras are those that would be up to no good !

I don't plan on getting up to no good, but I'm bothered about the money being wasted, the attitude it creates (or reflects) in society, and the increasing tendency for every aspect of our lives to be monitored and archived.

 

As I said above, the problem doesn't vanish because one or two cameras appear and, when you have one or two, it's much easier to add a couple more. What's next? Cameras trained on every door, so we know who is home and who is not?

[Ghostrider]

^^ I have no wish to have my every move from Charlotte House to the Cross, or however far they're going with this, filmed and preserved for posterity each and every time I go there. Whether I'm up to "no good" or not, I daresay is very much a matter of opinion, so maybe tracing my movements have "justification", however putting myself in the headspace of the "vulnerable" I fail to see what reassurance knowing any potential attacker etc may be see on tape is going to do. Chances are you'll already have bled to death up or down a Closs, or be already plumbed in to more monitors than you can count in an ICU before anyone goes looking, leaving, the offeender, even if a good enough ID can be had to secure a prosecution, long gone. A continous visible Police presence does deter, this we know from the past, I'm yet to be convinced being filmed will really make a great deal of difference to how most who see the Street as their playground to do as they please, will act.

 

Concerning the filming, to put it bluntly, if every time you were in the Charlotte House to the Cross area another individual followed you filming your every move, would you not at the very least stick both their camera, and then them, someplace very uncomfortable for both. I don't see the difference it makes that that "individual" in this case is Big Brother in the shape of the local Council and Police. I'm not in the habit of having anything to hide when in the area in question, but by the same token I strongly object at the invasion in to my privacy the Council and Police making a home movie of the entirity of my each and every trip creates. Especially when I have yet to be convinced that the overall positive benefits of the scheme will be any more than small, and at the the lower end of the severity of crime spectrum, and then of course there is the cost, from the public purse, a percentage of which is "my" money, being IMHO "wasted".....

[Medziotojas]

Surely the only people that would be really bothered by CCTV cameras are those that would be up to no good ! and lets face it, They are the ones that the cameras would be all about.

 

Good or bad is irrelevant; I just plain don't like being watched!

[Pooks]

I don't believe cameras are the solution. As a preventative measure they may be useful, but only in the area that they are situated. The problem cases that have given need for CCTV to become a reality are fairly severe and will only be pushed into other areas.

 

If there are no other means to resolve a problem area but by videoing what goes on then somebody needs to ask, "Why?" and do something about it.

[lita340]

in my humble opinion it is rather silly to tell people where the cctv is going to be put as in the outline pic in the shetland times. As this will as earlier stated only send the trouble else where.

 

As for being watched un willingly it is a problem but it is happening in a number of areas now and only showing spots that have been made aware to be trouble spots. so stay outta trouble and you wont be watched.

 

In the document i did not see any cctv being placed at the fort??? this is suppose to be a gathering point for underage drinking is it not/???

 

any ideas???

[Pooks]

Listed building? Planning permission would be a pain in the bum!

 

According to your post if I wanted to stay outta trouble and therefore trouble-spots I would have to avoid 'Da Street'. The hub of our community. The place that strives to exist even when purchasing goods mail order and over the internet can be cheaper.

 

I have perhaps (probably) misread your post but what help is £200,000 worth of cameras if it drives people away from the Street whether they are behaving or not?

[Fifi]

Of course we're all being caught on camera each time we walk past the Market Cross. The webcam's watching you!