978-1285459059 Chapter 8 Part 2

Unlock access to all the studying documents.

View Full Document

120

1. A decline in privacy is intertwined with an increase in surveillance

so as the capability for surveillance has increased the negative

impact on privacy has become a criminal justice issue.

2. Privacy and surveillance are often thought of as mutually exclusive

states, one loses privacy to the level that one is under surveillance

c. The new media based social sphere is a high visibility, high

surveillance, low regulation world

d. Standards for privacy and access are set by and large by

businesses such as Google and Apple that provide the

communication platforms and market mobile

communication devices that frame the social media based

culture

e. In this translucent new world, individuals do have some

expectation of privacy but it is fragile and

3. The unresolved issue is who owns the digital content that is created

and distributed through new media?

a. Once content is posted on the World Wide Web for

example, it is difficult to determine who has ownership

b. At this time, public concerns appear to be focused on

protections from unreasonable Government collection of

the content and many people appear willing to disclose

much of their personal information to private entities

including businesses and web surfing strangers

4. New media has diminished the historical “reasonable expectation

of privacy” standard and has replaced it with a “reasonable

expectation of distribution”

a. Most users expect privacy while their information is in

transit, but are not aware or not concerned with their lack of

control of its distribution after its delivered

ii. The use of telephone wiretaps in the 1900s first raised the specter of

surveillance abuse

1. Earl Warren and William Brandeis predicted: “mechanical devices

threaten to make good the prediction that ‘what is whispered in the

closet shall be proclaimed from the housetops’”

iii. No Western democracy has embraced police surveillance systems more

than the United Kingdom (although the U.S. is quickly catching up)

121

1. The rise of surveillance capabilities increased dramatically with the

development of modern camera-based systems in the 1960s

a. CCTV (closed circuit television) was initially used both in

the U.S. and Britain sparingly as an in-store means of

apprehending and deterring shoplifters

2. Although the technology became less expensive and increased in

its capabilities throughout the 1970s, the Western political

environment remained hostile to surveillance of the general public

surveillance systems

5. Capping the social construction of police surveillance systems as

positive and necessary in England was a symbolic crime, the 1993

murder of a two-year-old boy who was recorded on a mall security

camera being taken away by his two teenage killers

a. Similarly in the U.S., symbolic crimes, usually murders,

have periodically super-charged the slow but sure

surveillance creep through society to periods of

surveillance surges

i. Once installed, logic inevitably calls for coverage of

larger areas, and every murder or terrorist act

intensifies the demand for expanded surveillance

iv. The result in England has been the normalization of police surveillance

systems

1. CCTV surveillance has been described as a public “fifth utility”

2. Driven as much by politics as by empirical evidence, United

Kingdom CCTV surveillance came to be widely perceived as an

affordable and efficient technical fix for crime and described as

equal to full-time police officers on the beat twenty-four hours all

taking notes without meal breaks, holidays, or sick leave

v. In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and passage of

the Patriot Act and related legislation the U.S. is on tack to joining

England as a massively camera-surveilled society

122

vi. Two forms of camera surveillance programs (both forms take advantage of

the surveillance effect: using the psychological impact of the belief that

one might be under surveillance to influence people’s behaviors):

1. completely hidden systems that given potential offenders no

indication that they are being observed

a. More of a means of gathering evidence and aiding in

apprehensions

2. clearly marked, open systems

vii. How effective are surveillance systems in reducing crime?

1. Evidence based largely on interviews with offenders does suggest

that offenders take into account the perceived level of surveillance

and the likelihood of intervention when deciding whether to

commit some types of crimes, especially instrumental street crimes

such as car break-ins

7. However, if the threat of police intervention is absent, the impact

of surveillance fades

8. Found to significantly interact and affect the crime reduction

impact of these systems:

a. Camera placement

b. Site conditions that affect camera views

c. Pre-existing crime levels

i. Thus, within a single multi-camera system, some

cameras may have substantial impacts on some

crimes while other cameras have none or influence

different types of crimes

ii. Cameras in crime hotspots that reside in well-

designed and operationally integrated projects are

more effective crime deterrents than are widely

diffused community blanket deployments

iii. Police surveillance cameras have been shown to be

useful in a post crime investigation, less so in the

identification of suspects

iv. Even when a crime is not recorded, knowledge of

the movement of individual and vehicles prior to

123

and following an incident has proven crucial in

solving a number of crimes

d. Benefits to investigations:

i. reduced costs

ii. swifter justice

iii. increases in the public’s perception of safety

j. Benefits and Concerns of Increased Surveillance

i. The concerns raised about police camera surveillance boil down to:

1. Privacy

a. the unnecessary exposure of people’s life and activities

2. Legitimacy

a. impact on civil rights and control of power in democracies

3. Efficiency

a. crime reduction and increased public safety

ii. Benefits → Concerns

1. The ability to observe and react to previously unnoticed acts →

Net-widening from police arresting more people, particularly

juveniles for minor offenses, will result in more people with formal

arrest records

2. The ability to expel actual and potential deviants from specific

locations → Profiling, polarization and radicalization will result as

certain groups are targeted for exclusion from public spaces,

especially commercial shopping districts

3. The ability to provide evidence against offenders → The

development of databases to track and identify specific members

of the population based on their prior labeling as individuals that

“need to be watched” rather than being surveilled because of their

current behavior

4. The ability to create quiet, disturbance-free streets → Over-

policing and the suppression of public exuberance and uninhibited

but lawful social or political protest and the loss of informal citizen

guardianship of neighborhoods

5. The ability to create crime-free surveillance zones →

Displacement of crime: the displacement effects will push crime

into adjacent communities without the money or political clout to

obtain their own surveillance systems

a. Has been empirically examined along with the additional

potential benefit of a diffusion of crime reduction impact

i. Diffusion of benefits: seen as a possible effect from

surveillance systems because offenders might not be

aware of the boundaries of the surveillance

coverage and therefore reduce their offenses in

adjacent nonsurveilled areas

iii. The power elite control how and when they are surveilled whereas the

poor and powerless do not

124

iv. Of the concerns, displacement of crime to adjacent areas has been

empirically examined

1. As has the additional potential benefit of a diffusion of crime

reduction impact

a. Seen as a possible effect from surveillance systems because

offenders might not be aware of the boundaries of the

surveillance coverage and therefore reduce their offenses in

adjacent nonsurveilled areas

2. In the reported evaluations, evidence of both displacement and

diffusion effects have been reported

3. Recent research suggests that crime displacement may not be a

universal effect however

a. This suggests that diffusion of benefits may accrue near to

these systems while crime displacement can be

simultaneously occurring farther away

v. The recent appearance of video cameras mounted on patrol car

windshields in the U.S. represents another expanded, mobile use of video

technology for surveillance

1. No expectation of privacy in public = the almost uncontested use

of in-car video cameras by police on patrol or on fixed streetlight

mountings monitoring public streets

vi. The extension of surveillance to airborne drones has heightened the debate

1. Drones provide law enforcement the ability to surveill any part of

society not inside a structure

2. The public belief that walls and distance equals privacy is

destroyed

vii. Who gets watched is also a concern and research has suggested that

camera monitors are not particularly accurate in predicting victimization

viii. Those most often focused upon by camera operators are:

1. Young

2. Scruffy

3. Loitering males

a. This a profile that has not proven particularly effective in

maximizing crime prevention effects from these systems

ix. Resistance to greater adoption of surveillance cameras is found within law

enforcement agencies when officers perceive the cameras as an

administrative tool, installed to watch them, more than as a law

enforcement tool

1. In reality the cameras are both:

a. the police on the surveilled street, in front of their patrol

cars during a videotaped traffic stop

b. when equipped with a body camera are also under

surveillance

i. a number have lost their jobs as a result

x. Benefits of having a visual record

125

1. Administrators and the courts can later review officers’ and

suspects’ actions, and thereby decide the following:

a. liability

b. voluntary search consent

c. misconduct claims

d. They can also have more credible, objective evidence of

behavior and statements for DUI and drug intoxication

cases

2. The cameras are credited with deterring:

a. suspects form resisting arrest

b. officers from mistreating suspects

c. officers from engaging in other unprofessional acts

xi. In effect, in a democratic society the technology appears to:

1. Protect police officers from frivolous charges of abuse and

misconduct

2. Protect the public from actual abuse and misconduct by officers.

xii. In addition, the ubiquitous video cameras in citizens’ hands mean that a

surveillance effect will have an impact on the police as well as on the

public

1. Research has indicated that citizen-videotaped arrests have a

significant negative impact on the public’s perception of police use

of force

a. In response, the police are advised to operate under the

premise that cameras are everywhere and that any of their

actions might be taped

xiii. A final ironic consequence of more surveillance cameras in society is their

use by offenders to provide early warnings of police raids on premises

being used for illegal practices

1. This turns the acquisition of surveillance technology into an

offender/police arms race that law enforcement is not necessarily

favored to win

k. Balancing Police Surveillance and Public Safety

i. All surveillance systems raise issues related to the role of media in the

daily policing of our society

1. Surprisingly, concerns over Big Brother are usually raised by the

news media, law enforcement officers, and external observers, not

by the citizens under surveillance, who appear quite ready to trade

off a measure of personal privacy for a potential reduction in

victimization and fear

2. The public acceptance of surveillance is high and is linked to the

new media based increased exposure of private, backstage

behaviors in the news, entertainment, and infotainment media

a. If privacy is already rare and voluntary self-surveillance is

common, then government surveillance is less offensive.

b. Since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, public support in the

U.S. for surveillance systems has been strong, with close to

126

80 percent in one poll supporting the installation of

surveillance cameras in public places to prevent terrorist

attacks

ii. The social construction of the need for police camera surveillance depends

upon references to:

1. dramatic crime risks:

a. the terrorist attack

b. the predator pedophile

2. applications related to:

a. traffic control

b. school campuses

iii. Unresolved questions concern effects on the legitimacy, symbolic impact,

and the public image of justice when surveillance technology is employed

1. Public perception of law enforcement significantly determines

support for the entire criminal justice system

a. The police have a symbolic value

b. On the street, both the presence of a live police officer and

the assurance of knowing when one is being observed by

the police affirm the values of voluntary consent and public

control of law enforcement

c. Loss of these social attributes can diminish the aura of

legitimacy sustaining the entire criminal justice system

i. An unresolved concern is “function creep,” a

process in which surveillance systems are marketed

as protections against terrorism but once installed

are utilized to address mundane low level offenses

d. Misuse or overuse of surveillance will construct a social

reality of mistrust and cynicism, where fear of crime is

replaced by fear of authority

iv. In addition, use of surveillance could result in the neglect of broader

approaches to crime control

1. It is feared that reliance on technological fixes for crime can have

negative community effects such as

a. working against positive community participation

b. creating a siege mentality

c. generating social resistance to surveillance

d. undermining natural community surveillance by residents

i. Example: the presence of a police surveillance

system might result in fewer phone calls to the

police if residents assume that the local police

surveillance camera will observe incidents and alert

the authorities. Police camera surveillance may

thereby undermine natural surveillance by

encouraging people to have faith in the disembodied

electronic eye

127

v. Cameras unavoidably change the nature of the relationship between those

being watched and those doing the watching

1. Most of the time, the negative social consequences of increased

surveillance dominate the debate

2. However, the latest applications have positive potentials also

a. When the actions of the law enforcers and the public are

both monitored, stored, and subject to later review,

surveillance cameras can restrain the actions of authorities

as much as offenders

i. It remains to be seen whether the impact of these

projects in democratic societies will be greater on

the police than on the public

ii. A significant effect on employees has already been

reported in correctional settings where the behavior

of both correctional officers and prisoners is

monitored

1. Like other two-edged swords, the dual

nature of police camera surveillance is

apparent

2. In the wrong hands it can invade privacy and

make Orwell’s 1984 a reality

3. But it can also, in a different political

context, be liberating and protective

4. Which reality will emerge is yet to be

determined

3. Increased fear of crime and terror results in increased tolerance for

surveillance

a. The danger is that fear will drive citizens to glibly

surrender personal privacy for an unknown measure of

personal security

b. Whether these programs actually reduce crime or protect

against terrorist attacks enough to warrant the loss in

privacy is an open question

i. They are capable of producing positive near-term

effects for certain types of crime, with vehicle-

related offenses appearing to be most effectively

deterred

c. Whether the systems can maintain effects over the long

term is not known

vi. How the power to surveill is held accountable and what limits are placed

on its operation are unresolved issues

1. The impact of new computing and database technologies will

increase the reach of surveillance— with the coupling of

surveillance cameras to fast, inexpensive computers surveillance

capabilities will include:

a. facial recognition

128

b. real time vehicle and person tracking

c. behavior recognition

2. Widespread police access to a real-time, computer-analyzed,

media-augmented surveillance data will soon be common-place

3. New media technologies have made social surveillance an activity

that anyone can engage in

IV. The Brave New Media World

a. Today, the media can be used to influence people’s attitudes about crime and

make more crime-related information available to the police

i. Other uses can speed the processing of criminal cases.

ii. The technology of the media can be used to videotape police patrols,

vehicle stops, and interrogations

1. And the technology is useful in the investigation, surveillance, and

deterrence of crime

2. The administrative, mostly crime control, benefits associated with

these uses follow quickly, and projects have consistently been

evaluated as efficient and cost-effective

b. Hastening the wider use of media surveillance:

i. Increased social fears

ii. Technological advances that make the equipment:

1. more economical

2. more flexible

3. more capable

4. less obtrusive

c. There are concerns about potential social costs

i. If evidence of negative effects is found in future studies, the technological

genie will be out of the bottle, and it will be difficult to curtail established

practices

d. Media based anticrime efforts that do not include surveillance show no behavioral

effects

i. It appears doubtful that the media can by themselves deter criminal

behavior

ii. Surveillance programs do show deterrence effects, but their ability to deter

crime without displacement and other worrisome social effects remains

unproven

e. Media efforts to reduce victimization by teaching crime preventive behaviors:

i. have high recognition levels among the general public

ii. have increased public knowledge

iii. have changed public attitudes about crime prevention

iv. have not yet shown an ability to significantly change crime prevention

behavior

f. Programs designed to increase public cooperation by advertising crimes are

effective in gathering information and in solving some types of crimes

i. Their effect on the overall crime rate is not known, but it is likely

negligible

g. Costs include:

129

i. increased depersonalization of the criminal justice system

ii. isolation of the police form the policed

iii. increased citizen suspicion of surveillance

iv. polarization of society due to the creation of affluent, technologically

secured garrison communities

v. possible decreased citizen support and legitimization of the criminal

justice system

vi. when news media convey the message that these efforts are the answer for

reducing crime rates and when this is coupled with the entertainment

message of crime being generated through individually based causes, the

social construction of crime as a technological rather than a social problem

becomes the logical result

1. The belief that we can engineer our way out of the crime problem

through more equipment and manpower is bolstered

h. The collective lesson is that media-based programs are panaceas for the general

crime problem

i. To the extent that the public believes this and policy makers act on it,

resources for other approaches will be drained

i. To solve crimes and deter criminals, governments must intervene in citizens’ lives

i. The media and media technology provide a means to do so in new ways

that are felt to be:

1. more efficient

2. less obviously intrusive

ii. In practice such applications cannot avoid opening up for view new areas

of:

1. public life

2. the criminal justice system

3. police– citizen interactions.

a. In certain instances, such as in the use of patrol car

cameras, this is seen as a positive course

b. In other instances, such as in the use of hidden police

surveillance systems, the desirability of widely doing so is

not so clear

c. With proper oversight the use of media and media

technology in the criminal justice system can have both due

process and crime control benefits

j. The media are a potentially positive but, it must be remembered, ultimately

limited resource for criminal justice

i. The media should be an element of the total criminal justice policy

picture, but media cannot be the mainstay of crime and justice policies

k. Ultimately, the media affects social attitudes and perceptions more than social

behaviors so they are restrained to influencing policy support and public beliefs

more than criminal acts

i. Connected to the question of how much of our criminal justice policy

should be media based is the question of how many criminal justice

policies are media generated

130

Chapter Key Terms

prosocial television [178] media mug book [189]

public service announcements (PSAs) [178] surveillance effect [189]

announcement effect [181] closed circuit television (CCTV) [192]

videotaped interrogations [188] diffusion of benefits [195]

media lineup [189] displacement of crime [195]

Helpful and Interesting Internet Sites

The following sites are interesting sources for this chapter. Please review them before

recommending them to your students.

Anticrime Campaigns

http://www.mcgruff.org/

http://www.wetip.com/

Reefer Madness (1930)

http://www.google.com/search?q=reefer+madness&tbo=p&tbs=vid%3A1&source=vgc&

aq=0&oq=reefer+

Surveillance

https://ssd.eff.org//