Counter Crime Prevention

Crime prevention has always been somewhat a battle that most authorities face as they try to come up with new measures to counter crime and anti-social behaviour among citizens. In order to prevent these issues, there are multiple solutions and measures that can be taken, one is installing Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) in areas where there are high crime risks such as shopping malls and parking garages. The CCTV can be defined as the use of video cameras to transmit signals or images to a specific place or set of monitors, which allows close monitoring and surveillance. In the UK there are 4.2 million CCTV cameras installed. Today, CCTVs are extensively used to counter crimes and some are installed in public areas. I concur that it plays

For instants, in 1993, the two year old James Bulger was abducted from a shopping centre, when his mom was distracted. He was tortured and killed by two ten year old boys in Liverpool, England. The low-resolution images from the shopping centre’s CCTV system showed two unidentified boys taking James. The images were released to the public and a woman recognized one of the boys, Jon Venables. She also knew that he had played with another boy, Robert Thompson that weekend. The boys were soon arrested and charged with murder and after a high-profile trial, the boys were sent to separate juvenile detention centres. They are the youngest murderers ever in British

Also apart from the fact that it may violate people’s privacy, the CCTV’s videos can easily be hacked and obtained, according to ehacking.net CCTV’s can be hacked in 30 seconds. These hacked videos can illegally be used for personal gain, for example they can use the obtained material to blackmail etc. Additionally, some people think that the CCTV’s cannot prevent crime and that only education and/ or correction of behaviour will. Some may also argue that CCTV’s doesn’t prevent crime but rather displace it. They think that the CCTV’s do nothing to inhibit crime, as, in some occasion, crime still occur despite the CCTV’s present. For example, a bank can still be robbed, during the robbery they can easily wear a mask to disguise their face to avoid recognition. Their actions may be recorded, but because of the disguise, the videos may prove non-useful. Hence the distrust in CCTV’s effectivity in preventing and solving crimes. Another down side to CCTV’s is that they are quite expensive and all the footage needs to be watched, which is time-consuming or if filtered by a software, an error may