Surveillance

• Profiling - involves using data to draw up a statistical picture of likely offenders often using official crime statistics to do individuals can be profiled according to specific characteristics to decide what degree of risk they pose
• Stereotyping - Norris and Armstrong found CCTV operators using racist stereotypes singling out black youths for surveillance
• Surveillance creep - is where technology introduced for one purpose gets extended to another, the introduction of automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras in the city of London in response to an IRA bombing campaign in 1990-93 failed to identify a single bomber. Instead the cameras were just used to identify untaxed vehicles. Critics argue that this was a disproportionate use of high intrusive technology
• Profiling can be discriminatory, a profile based on official crime statistics may show certain groups as more likely to offend
• the police act on the profile by stopping black youths more than other groups
• Any black youths who are actually offending are more likely to be caught then offenders from other groups
• Like the Panopticon, CCTV depends on criminals believing they are being watched and being deterred by this
• Gill and Loveday found that very few criminals were put off by CCTV.
• • Norris found CCTV has little effect other than displacement 
• CCTV has had some successes such as the identification of David Copeland, a right-wing terrorist conviction of a nail bombing campaign. However despite this cameras rarely catch someone ‘in the act’ critics suggest that CCTV’s real function may be to reassure the public, even though it makes little difference to their security.