Transcript Document
Locating Social Responsibility:
CCTV and public space
Mark Levine and John Dixon
Lancaster University
Psychology Department
Proximities 2007
Background
Home Office Funded Study
They interested in ‘public’ evaluation
of public order measures
Street Drinking and CCTV
We interested in implications for civic
and public relations
Focused on Lancaster Town Square
Data
Telephone survey (n=808)
In-situ interviews (n= 59) with users of the
town square including
Teenagers
Mothers with young children
Homeless people
Travellers
Commercial workers
Elderly
Street Drinking
Exploring moral order and ‘ideological
dilemmas’ of public space
Freedom and control
Street drinking
transgressing private/public distinction
transgressing ‘free use’ of public space
transgressing ‘valued place identity’
Locating Incivility
(not public order)
Incivilities
Participants almost always orientate to the
dilemma
Sometimes resolved by constructing
(in)admissible publics
Sometimes ‘purification’
Although strong support for the ban -
positions were nuanced.
Even support from street drinkers
Incivility complaints + propriety recognition
CCTV Surveillance
Social Responsibility for others in public
Social psychology since 1960’s
American anxiety urban/city living
Society of strangers
Interesting question as to why psychology
‘discovered’ this in the 60’s
Kitty Genovese case
The bystander effect
Group Size inhibits helping
Diffusion of responsibility
Pluralistic ignorance
Audience inhibition
Arid and decontextualised research
tradition
CCTV and Social Responsibility
James Bulger case
Iconic image
Important for establishment of
legitimacy of CCTV
Conjunction of surveillance and social
responsibility
Proliferation of CCTV systems
4.4 million cameras
300 appearances per day
£150-300 million per year
41 cameras in
Lancaster/Morecambe/Estates
First deployed in 1996
Effectiveness
Home Office own research shows:
Good against car park crime
OK on some property crimes
Not much good an any other dimension
Some ‘post-hoc’ benefits in high profile
crimes
Support for CCTV systems remains high
(Although it depends on how you frame the question)
Our Research
Asked about:
Attitudes to CCTV cameras in Lancaster
Town Centre
Beliefs about social responsibility/welfare
of others
Explored relationships between them
Findings from Survey Data
Support for CCTV high
Support for CCTV related to support for
social exclusion
Strong agreement with norm to help others
Much less belief that others would help them
Stronger support for CCTV - weaker the
feeling of responsibility to help others in
public
No I don't think I'd be the first person to go and try
and (inaudible). Yeah I think most people now tend to
keep themselves to themselves. Yeah, it would be a little
bit unrealistic to expect just people to police themselves.
Int
I mean do you think (inaudible) that situation would
work?
J
Yeah, I mean it's a sort of vicious circle isn't it, you
know if you start expecting things like that [CCTV
cameras] to do, take all your responsibilities for you, then
it does get worse. Yeah it's hard to know really what to do.
I mean it's going, but I think you've got to be a bit
pragmatic to a certain extent, yeah, and just take measures
you know if they look like in the short term they will do
good and maybe take other measures in the longer term to,
you know make people hopefully take care of each other,
sort of thing but that's not something you can expect to just
happen overnight and in the meantime you've perhaps got
to have the cameras.
J
Qualifying Support for CCTV
I say a necessary evil, yeah I do really I mean,
I, you know, tend to, myself I tend to
believe in almost absolute freedom for
everybody that everyone shouldn't really be
monitored in what they do but as I say but if
they do help to make places feel safer or
whatever then it's hard to avoid them really
to be honest.
Ideological dilemma
I think it's a two sided thing for me. If they were
used for the safety and security of residents in
the area and were monitored properly and
consistently then you know, I wouldn't mind
them, I mean I'm not a criminal so therefore I
don't have to worry about cameras. It's not
nice to be watched. Anyway if whether you're
a criminal or whether you're not a criminal it's
not nice to feel that some days you don't know
he's looking at you going about your ordinary
business.
Invisibility
“I'm not a criminal so therefore I don't have to
worry about cameras”
Invisibility of the ‘included’
But even the ‘targets’ orientate to the dilemma
Short and Ditton (1998)
Police Officer talk
Contrast with Speed Cameras
Making the invisible visible
High levels of support for Gatso cameras
But vocal and mainstream opposition
Top Gear/Captain Gatso/Anglegrinder Man
Here also discourses of ‘Responsibility’
“Safety in the driver not the technology”
The hardening of minor infractions
Speeding as ‘incivility’?
Technology doesn’t allow for the ‘location’
of social responsibility
Conclusion
Reframe thinking about CCTV surveillance
Social Relations in public
Safety in ‘the eyes of others’
Proximal safety rather than distal gaze of
CCTV
(This is not a generic argument - viz Gatso cameras and
responsibility)
Importance of ‘locating’ arguments about
social responsibility