Yes, cameras can have a Big Brother aspect, but again we come to the same conclusion as before, a camera by itself, like a gun by itself, means NOTHING at all!
You can fit 30 cameras in one short street and it won't do any good if they aren't used properly by human beings at the other end, filling streets with cameras is not enough, you need trained, dedicated, honest operators and a honest government that is not going to use them for Orwellian purposes.
Yet another reason why statistics can be dodgy is the fact that crimes may not be reported or crimes that weren't noticed before can be suddenly discovered.
For example, you could have tons of pickpockets operating in Trafalgar square but because many people may not notice they were stolen (could think they simply lost their itens) or decide not to report to the police as the iten stolen was of little value or the victim doesn't believe the police can return their itens, the official statistic of pickpocketing in Trafalgar square will be low.
Suddenly you attach dozens of cameras in the area or people start reporting more and the official statistic rise up to the sky, such a statistic would be a fraud, pickpocketing never increased in reality, it was simply artificially low before.
Then, let's say the cameras scare pickpocketers off together with increased police activity (prevention, arresting, etc.), the statistic may fall down again, BUT, if the pickpocketers were not all arrested and didn't decided to stop their criminal activities, they might aswell simply switch to another area with less cameras and less police, so, this would be another statistical fraud, while the level of pickpocketing in Trafalgar square would seem to be lower, if the criminals simply start operating in another area nothing was solved at all as they continue to rob and will continue to migrate wherever it is easier for them.
Criminals will always exist no matter the amount of cameras or guns in any society, surely these factors can have positive effects just like they can have no effects at all or even negative effects, it all depends on the capacity of the human beings to enforce intelligent policies properly, can you have low crime in a society with American gun control laws and no security cameras? Yes. Can you have low crime in a society with British-like cameras and utterly restricted gun control policies? Yes. It all depends on the particular case and in the human beings, and this is why I don't appreciate transnational statistical comparisons, even if they were not too drastically twisted, realities may be far too different to have any legislative meaning.
Indeed, cameras alone should not make anyone safer or even feel safer, you need to count on highly professional operators and an efficient police ready to respond, as it is useless to know the government is watching you get robbed if they can't send you decent help or at least use the footage to arrest the bugger.
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