Today we read that police chiefs want access to Britain's 30,000 local council CCTV cameras so they can analyse physical movements that could help identify criminals. The East German Stasi would be jealous.
This week we also read again of plans for parking tickets to be awarded by post based on CCTV footage and that 1,000,000 children will be on the national DNA database by next year.
If you don't think this is a grossly unpleasant and disturbing state of affairs, I'd love to hear why not. The emergence of the surveillance state in the last decade is Labour's legacy. The thoroughly illiberal nature of the Blair and Brown governments presents the Tories with an opportunity to be on the side of civil liberties and to stand for what is fundamentally right. Will the party be brave enough to run hard on this though?
6 comments:
Very interesting take on this!
As it happens, CCTV records do help in dealing with crimes, as we have clocked in my area. The point about access to what are Local Authority cameras gives away something of a clue about the police today.
Yes, we do want more beat officers providing a visible presence. In my ward we have one (very good!) full time Ward Constable and two Community Support Officers some of the time. That's for a very large and complex ward; but it is much better than it had been for years.
Now, all this has been achieved via the huge increases in national taxes (old story) and an ever-increasing police precept that councils collect for them (conveniently with the Council Tax).
Therefore we already have two sources of income for the police. On top of that, funding for the Support Officers is not guaranteed (indeed, it has already been cut back) so we shall either have to pay for them out of Council Tax or lose them -- a third tax, and in this case a definite 'stealth tax'. This is expected to happen in 2 or 3 years from now. Some councils are already paying for theirs, and a few even pay for one or more 'real' police officers.
And then, yes, what the local council already provides, in the way of CCTV cameras and monitoring (including 24 hour a day staffing costs) and Community Safety Street Wardens. They too are excellent, by the way, and the latter are at least partly funded at present, but the rest comes from Council Tax.
Thus the councils are effectively subsidising the police on several fronts.
Personally, I'd change the whole system to be either one thing or the other: policing and community safety is either a Home Office matter or it's a purely local matter. Let's draw a clear line rather than the present fuzzy mechanism in which so much is hidden, and which can lead to occasional clashes/conflicts.
Put the whole subject in one or the other, I say.
Very interesting take on this!
As it happens, CCTV records do help in dealing with crimes, as we have clocked in my area. The point about access to what are Local Authority cameras gives away something of a clue about the police today.
Yes, we do want more beat officers providing a visible presence. In my ward we have one (very good!) full time Ward Constable and two Community Support Officers some of the time. That's for a very large and complex ward; but it is much better than it had been for years.
Now, all this has been achieved via the huge increases in national taxes (old story) and an ever-increasing police precept that councils collect for them (conveniently with the Council Tax).
Therefore we already have two sources of income for the police. On top of that, funding for the Support Officers is not guaranteed (indeed, it has already been cut back) so we shall either have to pay for them out of Council Tax or lose them -- a third tax, and in this case a definite 'stealth tax'. This is expected to happen in 2 or 3 years from now. Some councils are already paying for theirs, and a few even pay for one or more 'real' police officers.
And then, yes, what the local council already provides, in the way of CCTV cameras and monitoring (including 24 hour a day staffing costs) and Community Safety Street Wardens. They too are excellent, by the way, and the latter are at least partly funded at present, but the rest comes from Council Tax.
Thus the councils are effectively subsidising the police on several fronts.
Personally, I'd change the whole system to be either one thing or the other: policing and community safety is either a Home Office matter or it's a purely local matter. Let's draw a clear line rather than the present fuzzy mechanism in which so much is hidden, and which can lead to occasional clashes/conflicts.
Put the whole subject in one or the other, I say.
Thanks for your post, John. The issue of local government funding is, of course, a can of worms. I rather like the idea of local authorities being given more power and the adoption of the direct democracy proposals advanced by Dan Hannan MEP and Douglas Carswell MP.
I do actually share your unease about the extension of CCTV and surveillance - but I somehow doubt that the Conservative Party will ever make much of a stance on this either. The extension of CCTV has been made possible by the support of Conservative controlled councils across the country - and my local Conservative council hasn't shown any resistance whatsoever and in fact was fervent in calling for its introduction to reduce problems at closing time.
There is little doubt that Police believe CCTV plays a useful role in both identifying and deterring troublemakers - but it is a brave politician (of any party) who will stand up and challenge any request from the Police and then insist that if necessary appropriate controls are put in place. I supect that if any real progress is to be made on this and many other similar issues then it will need to be elevated above party politics.
If you are highlighting the inadequacy of so many Tory councils, then I agree with you. If only they were all like Wandsworth or Hammersmith & Fulham...
In response to Donal's reply to my first offering (which ended up posted twice for some reason -- I didn't do that!)...
The advantage I see for having these facilities under Council control is that it ensures it is the local community's needs that are being served, not some remote Whitehall (Home Office) agenda.
We are all familiar with policing being tied-up with Government targets and all the rst of that. They try it with us as well, but at least we do put our local communities first.
I agree, though, that more power needs to be with the communities that are affected by whatever is going on, rather than with outsiders, be they in Whitehall, Quangos, Brussels or anywhere else. They're all 'outsiders'.
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