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I guess you could look at major European cities like London where CCTV is pervasive and other cities with considerably less. It seems to me that most of the ju

by knolan 8y ago

I guess you could look at major European cities like London where CCTV is pervasive and other cities with considerably less. It seems to me that most of the justification for surveillance systems is focused on edge cases, terrorism and paedophilia which are statistically unlikely of affect the vast majority of people. If you watch some of the reality TV you see in UK about CCTV surveillance you’d think the county is suffering from a crime epidemic when in fact a lot of the situations are minor and often escalated by overly aggressive police officers interacting with uneducated angry drunk people. Better social policy regarding education and alcohol would be the better solution.

tonyedgecombe 8y ago
If you watch reality TV then you aren't getting the facts.
- knolan 8y ago
  Of course, it’s not something I would normally watch. It is however very popular with my parents generation. They get very invested in the whole idea of the world falling apart when the data shows that crime is falling.
  - pmontra 8y ago
    Maybe because of the "it was better when we were young" kind of ideas? Obviously it was and it will be for us too. We were younger, healthier, stronger and living in the environment we were raised into, not something made by younger and unfathomable minds.
- Cthulhu_ 8y ago
  I've seen some English reality / cop TV, it's entertaining enough - mostly because most of the crime shown there is benign, like idk, people driving without a license or drunk people. They probably make those shows on purpose though, showing on the one side that crime isn't that bad, and on the other to remind people to keep their insurance up to date because the cops are watching.
peteretep 8y ago
> when in fact a lot of the situations are minor and often escalated by overly aggressive police officers Do you have a citation for this?
- knolan 8y ago
  There appears to be a good bit of literature on the Stop and Search tactic[0] and also the examples of the harassment of law abiding photographers in the U.K.[1] It’s race to the bottom policing that’s approaching the US model. Assume everyone is a criminal (when crime is at an all tome low), dress police officers up in tactical gear, and turn them into enforcers rather than protectors. [0] https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/abstractdb/AbstractDBDetails.aspx?id=89575 https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/abstractdb/AbstractDBDetails.aspx?... [1]https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/jan/23/photographers-protest-stop-search-terrorism-police?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/jan/23/photographers-pro...
- dazc 8y ago
  You can visit many town centres in the UK on a Friday evening and witness it yourself, to a degree. The Police also have a habit of speaking some other kind of language that has the effect of causing people who are already bad tempered to become even more so. Of course no data, purely observational.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
diszd 8y ago
London was already terrible to begin with. Mass immigration (to the point where they already have a Muslim mayor) and cuts in funding for the already toothless police are responsible. There's no way you could fairly compare it to other European cities.
- qxmat 8y ago
  The current Mayor of London (Sadiq Khan), his religion (Islam) and immigration are unrelated. Sadiq Khan is the Labour candidate who succeeded the previous Conservative mayor by majority in a democratic vote. Swings between the two major parties are common. In other totally unrelated news, 12% of the population of London are Muslim. Your reckless conflation of facts paints you as a troll of religious discrimination if not outright racism.
- knolan 8y ago
  So it’s okay for England to colonise half the planet and then get upset when some of their subjects move there? The fact is that crime in Europe has utterly collapsed.
  - johnisgood 8y ago
    While I may disagree with the parent post, I do not agree with this one either. Just because some people did horrible things in the past from the country that I had no control over does not mean that these evil things should be done to me, too. It does not justify it. Not at all.
    - acdha 8y ago
      How is legal immigration an evil thing?
      - johnisgood 8y ago
        I did not intend to say that legal immigration is an "evil thing". As far as I am concerned the parent comment tried to justify it in such a way that just because some people from England colonized some parts of the planet through aggression in the past, then somehow it necessarily follows that people who live in England today must agree to open borders, or say, illegal immigration. Illegal immigration because, "after all, people from England colonized the planet through aggression before! You deserve it!". See what I mean? This is what I thought the parent meant. It might be the case that I am biased because I did argue with too many people holding this belief: "your ancestors did terrible things, therefore you should keep quiet and take it!". I do not agree. In case this is not what the parent meant, or you think he meant something else, please do not hesitate to correct me.
ericdykstra 8y ago
> If you watch some of the reality TV you see in UK about CCTV surveillance you’d think the county is suffering from a crime epidemic when in fact a lot of the situations are minor and often escalated by overly aggressive police officers interacting with uneducated angry drunk people. I couldn't find London's murder rate further back than 1990 for some reason, but for England, the murder rate is higher now than it's been since at least 1900. We don't know if CCTV surveillance, gun bans, and silverware purchasing restrictions have had an effect reducing violent crime, but at the very least it hasn't been enough to counter the increase. > Better social policy regarding education and alcohol would be the better solution. I'm pretty skeptical that this would decrease violent crime and/or murders. Do you have any evidence for this?
- foldr 8y ago
  That might be technically true, but it looks like the murder rate in the UK hasn't varied greatly over the course of the past century-and-a-bit, at least according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate_by_decade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention....
- knolan 8y ago
  I never said it would decrease either, I said that better social policy would reduce the need for surveillance and aggressive policing — which seem to be more reactionary and designed to appease the typical Daily Mail reader. There are a lot of angry young men with little or no skills in the U.K. with nothing to do. This ASBO generation is who should be helped with better social policy. The fact is that the homocide rate has utterly collapsed[0]. It’s difficult to compare the murder rate today with 1900 due to economic and cultural shifts. We may as well compare the execution rate, the domestic violence rate and the sexual assault rate too. [0]https://ourworldindata.org/homicides https://ourworldindata.org/homicides
- engineeringwoke 8y ago
  This is probably the best study out there, and it hits the alcohol point pretty well: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3015237/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3015237/

by knolan 8y ago

tonyedgecombe 8y ago

If you watch reality TV then you aren't getting the facts.

knolan 8y ago
Of course, it’s not something I would normally watch. It is however very popular with my parents generation. They get very invested in the whole idea of the world falling apart when the data shows that crime is falling.
- pmontra 8y ago
  Maybe because of the "it was better when we were young" kind of ideas? Obviously it was and it will be for us too. We were younger, healthier, stronger and living in the environment we were raised into, not something made by younger and unfathomable minds.
Cthulhu_ 8y ago
I've seen some English reality / cop TV, it's entertaining enough - mostly because most of the crime shown there is benign, like idk, people driving without a license or drunk people. They probably make those shows on purpose though, showing on the one side that crime isn't that bad, and on the other to remind people to keep their insurance up to date because the cops are watching.

peteretep 8y ago

> when in fact a lot of the situations are minor and often escalated by overly aggressive police officers Do you have a citation for this?

knolan 8y ago
There appears to be a good bit of literature on the Stop and Search tactic[0] and also the examples of the harassment of law abiding photographers in the U.K.[1] It’s race to the bottom policing that’s approaching the US model. Assume everyone is a criminal (when crime is at an all tome low), dress police officers up in tactical gear, and turn them into enforcers rather than protectors. [0] https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/abstractdb/AbstractDBDetails.aspx?id=89575 https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/abstractdb/AbstractDBDetails.aspx?... [1]https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/jan/23/photographers-protest-stop-search-terrorism-police?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/jan/23/photographers-pro...
dazc 8y ago
You can visit many town centres in the UK on a Friday evening and witness it yourself, to a degree. The Police also have a habit of speaking some other kind of language that has the effect of causing people who are already bad tempered to become even more so. Of course no data, purely observational.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

diszd 8y ago

London was already terrible to begin with. Mass immigration (to the point where they already have a Muslim mayor) and cuts in funding for the already toothless police are responsible. There's no way you could fairly compare it to other European cities.

qxmat 8y ago
The current Mayor of London (Sadiq Khan), his religion (Islam) and immigration are unrelated. Sadiq Khan is the Labour candidate who succeeded the previous Conservative mayor by majority in a democratic vote. Swings between the two major parties are common. In other totally unrelated news, 12% of the population of London are Muslim. Your reckless conflation of facts paints you as a troll of religious discrimination if not outright racism.
knolan 8y ago
So it’s okay for England to colonise half the planet and then get upset when some of their subjects move there? The fact is that crime in Europe has utterly collapsed.
- johnisgood 8y ago
  While I may disagree with the parent post, I do not agree with this one either. Just because some people did horrible things in the past from the country that I had no control over does not mean that these evil things should be done to me, too. It does not justify it. Not at all.
  - acdha 8y ago
    How is legal immigration an evil thing?
    - johnisgood 8y ago
      I did not intend to say that legal immigration is an "evil thing". As far as I am concerned the parent comment tried to justify it in such a way that just because some people from England colonized some parts of the planet through aggression in the past, then somehow it necessarily follows that people who live in England today must agree to open borders, or say, illegal immigration. Illegal immigration because, "after all, people from England colonized the planet through aggression before! You deserve it!". See what I mean? This is what I thought the parent meant. It might be the case that I am biased because I did argue with too many people holding this belief: "your ancestors did terrible things, therefore you should keep quiet and take it!". I do not agree. In case this is not what the parent meant, or you think he meant something else, please do not hesitate to correct me.

ericdykstra 8y ago

> If you watch some of the reality TV you see in UK about CCTV surveillance you’d think the county is suffering from a crime epidemic when in fact a lot of the situations are minor and often escalated by overly aggressive police officers interacting with uneducated angry drunk people. I couldn't find London's murder rate further back than 1990 for some reason, but for England, the murder rate is higher now than it's been since at least 1900. We don't know if CCTV surveillance, gun bans, and silverware purchasing restrictions have had an effect reducing violent crime, but at the very least it hasn't been enough to counter the increase. > Better social policy regarding education and alcohol would be the better solution. I'm pretty skeptical that this would decrease violent crime and/or murders. Do you have any evidence for this?

foldr 8y ago
That might be technically true, but it looks like the murder rate in the UK hasn't varied greatly over the course of the past century-and-a-bit, at least according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate_by_decade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention....
knolan 8y ago
I never said it would decrease either, I said that better social policy would reduce the need for surveillance and aggressive policing — which seem to be more reactionary and designed to appease the typical Daily Mail reader. There are a lot of angry young men with little or no skills in the U.K. with nothing to do. This ASBO generation is who should be helped with better social policy. The fact is that the homocide rate has utterly collapsed[0]. It’s difficult to compare the murder rate today with 1900 due to economic and cultural shifts. We may as well compare the execution rate, the domestic violence rate and the sexual assault rate too. [0]https://ourworldindata.org/homicides https://ourworldindata.org/homicides
engineeringwoke 8y ago
This is probably the best study out there, and it hits the alcohol point pretty well: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3015237/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3015237/