Speed trials - Brighton
Discussion
rev-erend said:
It always signals the end of Summer for me..
Can't believe it's nearly here already.
Might pop down to camera city.
I was in charge of the CCTV cameras from about 18 months after their original installation. I was certain that they were a waste of time and all that they would do would be displace crime. It took me perhaps a month or so to become a convert.Can't believe it's nearly here already.
Might pop down to camera city.
The CCTV controllers produced a video of 'out-takes' in the first three months of the go-live date and, to ensure it didn't find its way onto the television, only one copy was made. Given the interest of other forces, the civil rights lobby, residents and others, it was shown so frequently that the quality began to suffer. I asked the controllers to pick some more incidents and, after two weeks they came back with the reply that they hardly got anything similar. And that was just a year after installation. The local yobs soon learned.
I don't like the idea of being filmed from breakfast time to the final flush of the day but I have to say that it revolutionised the way public order could be policed. We used to put a van of 'heavies' in West Street of a Saturday/Sunday morning as 5-6000 drunken revellers spilled out onto the streets of Brighton but the van was eventually withdrawn as it wasn't needed.
There was some displacement of crime but not, as I thought, to the outskirts of Brighton. If robbers couldn't do the main post office in Ship Street then there was little point blagging the one at Rottingdean for some stamps and a couple of postal orders.
Cameras are wasted when they are not controlled by police staff or are placed wide apart in residential areas. But in a city centre they are superb as long as the civil rights side is policed as intently. We had 'lay' visitors who could check through our records anytime they wished and the only time they created a fuss was when they saw a tape marked '2 blokes screwing TK [telephone kiosk]'. I had Gay Pride, Amnesty International, the Pro-Life lobby, and a man in a dirty mac descend on me demanding dismissals, hangings and several beatings. When, with the evidence of the tape, we demonstrated the two meanings of the word screwing, they backed down.
The opportunites for abuse are very apparent but as I was ultimately responsible for what the controllers did, and I was nearing pensionable age, I ensured everything was above board.
Brighton must be one of the safest clubber-towns to visit of an evening.
Derek Smith said:
rev-erend said:
It always signals the end of Summer for me..
Can't believe it's nearly here already.
Might pop down to camera city.
I was in charge of the CCTV cameras from about 18 months after their original installation. I was certain that they were a waste of time and all that they would do would be displace crime. It took me perhaps a month or so to become a convert.Can't believe it's nearly here already.
Might pop down to camera city.
The CCTV controllers produced a video of 'out-takes' in the first three months of the go-live date and, to ensure it didn't find its way onto the television, only one copy was made. Given the interest of other forces, the civil rights lobby, residents and others, it was shown so frequently that the quality began to suffer. I asked the controllers to pick some more incidents and, after two weeks they came back with the reply that they hardly got anything similar. And that was just a year after installation. The local yobs soon learned.
I don't like the idea of being filmed from breakfast time to the final flush of the day but I have to say that it revolutionised the way public order could be policed. We used to put a van of 'heavies' in West Street of a Saturday/Sunday morning as 5-6000 drunken revellers spilled out onto the streets of Brighton but the van was eventually withdrawn as it wasn't needed.
There was some displacement of crime but not, as I thought, to the outskirts of Brighton. If robbers couldn't do the main post office in Ship Street then there was little point blagging the one at Rottingdean for some stamps and a couple of postal orders.
Cameras are wasted when they are not controlled by police staff or are placed wide apart in residential areas. But in a city centre they are superb as long as the civil rights side is policed as intently. We had 'lay' visitors who could check through our records anytime they wished and the only time they created a fuss was when they saw a tape marked '2 blokes screwing TK [telephone kiosk]'. I had Gay Pride, Amnesty International, the Pro-Life lobby, and a man in a dirty mac descend on me demanding dismissals, hangings and several beatings. When, with the evidence of the tape, we demonstrated the two meanings of the word screwing, they backed down.
The opportunites for abuse are very apparent but as I was ultimately responsible for what the controllers did, and I was nearing pensionable age, I ensured everything was above board.
Brighton must be one of the safest clubber-towns to visit of an evening.
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