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Is it really camera that made the difference? I had a motorbike stolen in Beijing. Police's answer? "Sorry, the camera didn't work". A friend forget his phone i

Is it really camera that made the difference? I had a motorbike stolen in Beijing. Police's answer? "Sorry, the camera didn't work". A friend forget his phone in a taxi (who run away, then turned it off when he tried to call it). He left the taxi at a precise crossing with cameras. He went to the police station a very soon after. Police answer? "We couldn't identify the taxi". I have a few more stories like this (like wallet and phones stolen at the ATM). Yes all in China. And I'm not talking about the multiple scams that are very specific to china. Maybe public surveillance camera help preventing armed attacks (but it's never really been a thing in China anyway, and in serious decline in the world in general) and I doubt they can do much more. As you say, purpose matters. I don't believe crime stops with surveillance, it changes. Edit: one thing I forgot to mention, I feel the Chinese state media are doing a very good job at not talking too much about the different crime/problems happening. Western media are doing pretty much the opposite. I think on that precise point, if other method than censorship were used, it's actually a pretty good thing and do make people feel safer.

mschuster91 9y ago
> I feel the Chinese state media are doing a very good job at not talking too much about the different crime/problems happening. Western media are doing pretty much the opposite. They're not doing the really opposite thing... many western media outlets tend to focus on crimes committed by migrants or people with a migration background. No one cares if a German beats up his wife, but if a man of turkish descent beats up his wife, the tabloid frontpages are filled with "criminal scum beats up his wife". Crimes committed by foreigners generate clicks and buys, and this even more so given the massive right-wing swing in the western world.
- tbronchain 9y ago
  Thats quite off topic. The point is, by speaking less of insecurity people feel more safe.
rahimnathwani 9y ago
In the UK, a shop that I ran was robbed. The police said the camera outside the ship was mobile, and happened to be pointing the other way at the time. In China, I had a traffic altercation (between me, a pedestrian, and some people who were in a car at the time the altercation started). The police found the video footage and watched it within an hour after I reported it. My point: the plural of anecdote is not data.
- ttflee 9y ago
  Are you non-east-Asian? Chinese police answers to foreigners so quickly that jokes about foreigner-aided-reporting-to-police-as-a-service are circulated.
  - rahimnathwani 9y ago
    Yes, I'm non-east-Asian. And I reported the incident at a police station in an area where many foreigners live and work.

mschuster91 9y ago

> I feel the Chinese state media are doing a very good job at not talking too much about the different crime/problems happening. Western media are doing pretty much the opposite. They're not doing the really opposite thing... many western media outlets tend to focus on crimes committed by migrants or people with a migration background. No one cares if a German beats up his wife, but if a man of turkish descent beats up his wife, the tabloid frontpages are filled with "criminal scum beats up his wife". Crimes committed by foreigners generate clicks and buys, and this even more so given the massive right-wing swing in the western world.

tbronchain 9y ago
Thats quite off topic. The point is, by speaking less of insecurity people feel more safe.

rahimnathwani 9y ago

In the UK, a shop that I ran was robbed. The police said the camera outside the ship was mobile, and happened to be pointing the other way at the time. In China, I had a traffic altercation (between me, a pedestrian, and some people who were in a car at the time the altercation started). The police found the video footage and watched it within an hour after I reported it. My point: the plural of anecdote is not data.

ttflee 9y ago
Are you non-east-Asian? Chinese police answers to foreigners so quickly that jokes about foreigner-aided-reporting-to-police-as-a-service are circulated.
- rahimnathwani 9y ago
  Yes, I'm non-east-Asian. And I reported the incident at a police station in an area where many foreigners live and work.