CCTV and the Social Structuring of Surveillance

Norris, Clive; Armstrong, Gary

doi:10.4324/9781315242002-6

Cited by 23 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…For one, despite the emphasis many operations place on the live monitoring of cameras, operator activity is often low. This finding is consistent across various operational definitions of activity, such as crimes reported to police by CCTV operators , arrests in response to CCTV detections (Ditton and Short, 1999;Norris and Armstrong, 1999b;, evidence or intelligence captured by CCTV (Sarno et al, 1999;Waples and Gill, 2006;King et al, 2008), and proactive 'targeted surveillances' conducted by CCTV operators (Norris and Armstrong, 1999a;Lomell, 2004;Norris and McCahill, 2006). Researchers have provided a variety of explanations for the consistently low-levels of activity, including the often high camera to operator ratio (Keval and Sasse, 2010;, the lack of formal training of operators (Bulos and Sarno, 1996;Loveday and Gill, 2004), lack of motivation on the part of operators (Norris and McCahill, 2006), and the fact that operators are often tasked with responsibilities unrelated to the proactive monitoring of cameras (Leman-Langlois, 2002;.…”

Section: Review Of Relevant Literaturementioning

confidence: 53%

“…The tactic's rise can be traced to Great Britain, where the Home Office's 'CCTV Challenge' provided direct funding for CCTV projects between 1994and 1997(Painter and Tilley, 1999. Continued government support and public enthusiasm for the tactic led to continued expansion in the following years to the extent that CCTV is widely considered Britain's 'crime prevention initiative of the century' (Norris and Armstrong, 1999a). The use of CCTV as a crime prevention tool appears to be gaining similar stature in the United States.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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CCTV as a tool for early police intervention: Preliminary lessons from nine case studies

Piza

Caplan

Kennedy

2017

Secur J

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This study explores the prospect of utilizing CCTV as an early intervention mechanism to detect and disrupt street-level activity that can lead to violence. The analysis focuses on nine case studies in Newark, NJ, incorporating data from several sources, including video footage, computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system incident data, CAD event chronologies and face-to-face interviews with CCTV operators. The findings suggest that the benefits offered by CCTV, namely the instantaneous discovery and reporting of crime, may be rendered inconsequential by the process times associated with the differential-response policy of police dispatch. Potential methods by which police can more proactively utilize CCTV to prevent crime are discussed.

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Section: Review Of Relevant Literaturementioning

confidence: 53%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

CCTV as a tool for early police intervention: Preliminary lessons from nine case studies

Piza

Caplan

Kennedy

2017

Secur J

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Many of the concerns that we highlight in this paper, particularly to do with the wide array of applications of surveillance technology to policework, discriminatory outcomes, the question of effective legal regulation and detrimental privacy outcomes apply equally to CCTV surveillance cameras. See Taylor and Gill (2014); Edwards (2005); Goold (2002;2004); Stedmon (2011); Norris and Armstrong (1999). A sustained exploration of the similarities and differences between BWV and CCTV in policework is beyond the scope of this paper, but is a necessary area of further research and could inform an understanding of how diverse surveillance tools operate in tandem to produce criminal justice outcomes.…”

Section: Investigative Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Automated policing: the case of body-worn video

Bowling

Iyer

2019

International Journal of Law in Context

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This paper examines the impact of body-worn video (BWV) on the police craft skills of close observation, note-taking, investigative analysis, report-writing and preparation of evidence for the courts. It explains how the technology functions and explores its surveillant, investigative, probative and regulatory applications. The evidence shows that policing tasks are being transformed by BWV cameras and analytics such as facial recognition. The paper argues that BWV exemplifies the automation of policingthe replacement of police labour with mechanical devicesand explores the implications of this for transparency, accountability, fairness and police discretion.

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“…Indeed, so entrenched is this Black/white oppositional binary that an online search for a synonym for ‘threatening’, undertaken while writing this article, provided ‘black’ as a result (Thesaurus, 2018). In empirical studies of CCTV control room operators, Norris and Armstrong (1997, 1999) found a disproportionately high surveillance targeting of Black individuals (Smith, 2004). Yet, in the context of methamphetamines, ‘white trash’ is a pejorative and ‘othering’ term founded upon middle-class privilege and even eugenics (Linnemann and Wall, 2013: 324).…”

Section: See Criminalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Body-worn images: Point-of-view and the new aesthetics of policing

McKay

Lee

2019

Crime, Media, Culture

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Police organisations across much of the Western world have eagerly embraced body-worn video camera technology, seen as a way to enhance public trust in police, provide transparency in policing activity, reduce conflict between police and citizens and provide a police perspective of incidents and events. Indeed, the cameras have become an everyday piece of police ‘kit’. Despite the growing ubiquity of the body-worn video camera, understandings of the nature and value of the audiovisual footage produced by police remain inchoate. Given body-worn video camera’s promise of veracity, this article is interested in the aesthetics of the camera images and the socio-cultural construction of the cameras as tellers of truth. We treat body-worn video cameras as image-making devices linked to techniques and technologies of power, which construct and frame police encounters in specific ways, and we suggest that the aesthetics and point-of-view nature of the image contribute greatly to the truth-value that the images acquire. This article begins by providing an historical context for the use of cameras and images in policing. We then introduce our framework of visual criminology and present theories of point-of-view as a construct in the diverse areas of gaming, pornography and the visual arts, as well as in television and cinema. The article deploys the cinematic use of point-of-view to unpack the affective impact and aesthetic of the police body-worn video camera footage. We suggest that viewers of the footage are placed in the position of the corporeally absent police officer whose experience has been recorded by a viewfinderless device. This generates a vacillating interplay between subjectivity and objectivity, given that the alleged faithful recording of the event by the body-worn video camera presents a singular perspective and incomplete document that may not necessarily capture the full context of the law enforcement event.

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CCTV and the Social Structuring of Surveillance

Cited by 23 publications

References 2 publications

CCTV as a tool for early police intervention: Preliminary lessons from nine case studies

CCTV as a tool for early police intervention: Preliminary lessons from nine case studies

Automated policing: the case of body-worn video

Body-worn images: Point-of-view and the new aesthetics of policing

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