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AJC.com > Metro > View from the cop > Archives > 2007 > June > 18 > Entry
Smile for the video, please
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Smile
Video surveillance has come a long way from video tape and VCR machines. Now almost all effective systems are digital and can be monitored from any location thanks to your computer’s hard drive. Camera systems have come down in price and as a result, many individual homes as well as communities have purchased systems to aid in the overall security plan.
Any new business should include video as part of its start up costs. More and more, residential communities are looking at video surveillance as part of the security plan. Common objections to video security fall mainly into three categories: Budget; Responsibility for day to day maintenance, and The Big Brother Conspiracy
The second best thing to preventing crime is catching the criminal after the crime. You see it every day in the news. Video footage from all kinds of businesses, both inside and outside, have accounted for the arrests of criminals from petty theft to murder. Video is most often associated with banks and they have certainly led the way with video technology. As video becomes more state of the art, the price of a good system has come within range of individual smaller businesses, residential communities, and individual homeowners.
Fair Warning
A significant part of video surveillance has nothing to do with video capabilities. The posted sign warning “THIS AREA UNDER 24-HOUR VIDEO SURVEILLANCE” is enough for many crooks to use the risk versus opportunity formula and find that opportunity somewhere else. The warning offers crooks the opportunity to change their mind before committing the crime. The smart ones will re-think it. With so many targets, why take the chance?
Good Clean Fun, Infidelity, and Gossip
The first thing we do in Neighborhood Watch is ask the residents to call in suspicious cars. In the swim and tennis neighborhoods, we soon get suspicious-car calls that result in Mrs. So and So and Mr. So and So, married to other so and so’s back home, getting caught at the pool on a late-night rendezvous. It’s all part of the fun but with cameras, the fun comes with evidence. Be careful all you wild and crazy suburbanites.
There is opposition to cameras. Some people don’t want other people watching people doing whatever it is they do. This is where I have some conflict. Professionally, I love video because we catch more bad guys and have better evidence. Personally though, I’d like to think that I could walk the big dog down the street without a camera following me. I don’t want folks to know which yard she poops in. I’ve got a list. You know who you are.
Look at all the media we have all around us. Google-Earth for crying out loud! I told my kids I could watch them on PGE with is Parental Google Earth. It allows us to watch them in real time from space, no matter where they are, all the time. The secret is the tiny chips we had implanted when they were young. It’s really sad when they reach the age when they realize you made all that stuff up.
The fact is that if we didn’t have all these screw ups and lazy bottom feeders stealing and robbing and killing people, we wouldn’t need such technology for crime prevention. Neighborhoods and businesses wouldn’t need cameras everywhere. It’s a tough call as to what is more important. Most of us just want to be left alone to do whatever we want, evident by my old friend Ronnie, from my Navy days, who sent me a letter telling me two things: One, he was moving to Montana to escape all the technology of the world. He said that it was the only private place left, other than Pleasantville. The second was to inform me that I won the Publisher’s Clearing House Sweepstakes. He was an okay guy but did too many drugs in the 70’s. Every once in a while he has a flashback and thinks he’s Ed McMahon. He keeps getting locked up going house to house. When the resident answers the door he gives them a frozen waffle and tells them it’s a check for a million bucks.
Video is a good tool for evidence. Bad guys need to go to jail and whatever helps get them there is good. At the same time, it seems that the world is getting smaller and smaller. Sometimes life can be smooth as glass and other times bumpy as a frozen waffle.
Comments
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By Missandie
June 18, 2007 6:34 PM | Link to this
A buddy of mine has a shop and in addition to the digital cameras set up in the front, around the registers and in the rear of the store, she has a motion detector set so that once you step a foot inside after closing, the store is blazed in bright, white light. This way they will look flawless on the pictures!
By spaz
June 18, 2007 11:34 PM | Link to this
The flip side is that embarrassing mishaps are caught on video as well, especially when it happens outside a gov’t building. Then it feels like everyone is watching, and you simply want to crawl into a hole and die. Someone must get many a laugh over it, no doubt. You just hope and pray it doesn’t wind up on AFV.
By dawg_gone_truth
June 19, 2007 9:46 AM | Link to this
Does this mean I should not dig my underwear out of my crack in front of the quicky mart?
By RCH
June 19, 2007 12:25 PM | Link to this
Steve Cameras are good for catching the bad guy. But sometimes the bad guy can be the very people who are paid to protect us. A few weeks ago, cameras took pictures of speeders in a neighborhood,. What did images did we get. A patrol car.
By Tony
June 19, 2007 12:56 PM | Link to this
Sometimes we go a little fast without having the emergency equipment on. In most cases there is a good reason for it. Maybe the patrol car that was in the video surveillance was “speeding” because they were responding to a call like a burglary in progress? We like to use the silent approach when we go to calls like that. It helps us catch the other type of “bad guys”, you know, the non police type people in this case.
By RCH
June 19, 2007 2:21 PM | Link to this
Tony Not in this case. It showed the unit going to the end of the street and parking. I might also remind you that a child darting out into the street really doesn’t care who is speeding; policeman or citizen.
By Ashley F.
June 19, 2007 3:23 PM | Link to this
By far one of the best articles I have read all day! It is true however, society has transformed itself into a non trusting and scary place. For those who live their lives the way they should, work hard, pay bills, raise a family, whatever it maybe, have to deal with reprecussions of having their lives taped every where they go. But hey, I guess this is the Real World.
By Sheila
June 19, 2007 3:41 PM | Link to this
Cameras installed inside businesses have another beneficial side, besides catching burglars. Many employers find their cameras inspire employees to stop stealing from the register and the shelves. I know some employers who have been able to fire thieving employees when they show them the unmistakable evidence on disc (from digital camera footage). I’m no attorney, but I believe it’s true that one cannot expect privacy in a public place, so cameras in public places cannot be barred on the grounds of invasion of privacy.
By Lt. Steve
June 19, 2007 5:32 PM | Link to this
What about gyms who have constant theft problems from the locker room area. You can’t put a camera in the locker room unless you want to be on “Inside Edition” the next week but what about putting a camera in the locker (bait) to photograph the thief when he opens it up?
By Lee
June 20, 2007 5:39 AM | Link to this
There is really no excuse for any business (or home) not to have security cameras nowadays. Heck, Walmart sells night vision, wireless, color, and motion detector cameras - all for less than $100.
If you step it up a notch, it’s pretty amazing the system you can put together for around $1000.
By Anthony
June 28, 2007 2:10 PM | Link to this
It comes down to one simple thing in “my opinion”… If you are not doing anything you should not be doing then why should you care what camera is watching you.
If you want privacy you might want to dug a hole and crawl in, but remember, even Saddam Hussein got his photo taken in his condo… LOL
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3317881.stm
In this day and age where you are known as the last four digits of your social security number or the last three digits on the back of your credit card who cares if you get caught on video tape. Just think, If you died you can always be that Icon you always wanted to be.
Enjoy your life because it goes by faster then you think. If you are going to worry about this sorta stuff, “You” might be the probem.