Society
Is it better to lose £50 than to be watched by cameras?
Published 06 December 1999
I read a report somewhere in the national press that young black men graduate from mugging to armed robbery, mainly of betting shops. There is also the constant and increasing guerrilla warfare that goes on in west London between rich party-goers and a tribe, again of young black men, who stalk them and rob them of rather expensive jewellery and other bits and pieces.
On Saturday evening, Mrs Howe asked me to accompany her to the cashpoint for protection. Lo and behold, we were on the spot to witness a band of urchins relieving some poor and unsuspecting visitor to Brixton of his spondulicks.
We are told that here in Brixton the police are armed with cameras to film groups of young men suspected of mugging and different types of robbery. There was one hell of a row about it between the police and the lay members of the police consultative committee.
Some of the lay members screamed that this was, in effect, a violation of civil rights, an infringement of human rights even.
It is a very difficult one. I am always extremely concerned, frightened even, whenever Mrs Howe is out after dark or even, for that matter, before dark. One of our neighbours was relieved of her purse at 9.30am on her way to work. It was not a clever pickpocket, but a violent robbery.
London has returned to Dickensian times. Every August, thousands of boys pour out of secondary schools, half-schooled and desperate for the good things in life, which for them are the latest in Nike trainers, Armani and Versace outfits and the best in couture for their sweethearts. Mostly they hunt in packs, hooded and masked. So many Fagins lie in wait.
This is not exclusively a black question. On my recent journey from Northumberland to Dover, filmed for Channel 4, I came upon Grange Town in Middlesbrough. It is a council estate built to house steelworkers. Steel production has been revolutionised and the factories require far less labour. On this estate, car theft and burglary have become the crimes of youth.
Now the entire estate is surrounded by cameras: every nook, every cranny is covered; the observation room is manned round the clock. This is organised by the local council, funded by what are loosely described as regeneration grants. In all of our town centres there are CCTV cameras - and without them in central Brixton we couldn't possibly have found the nail bomber. (Well! Not quite.)
Are we heading the way of Grange Town, where huge cameras monitor everything round the clock? I am afraid so. And so many people in Grange Town, particularly the older folk, are in agreement.
Since the cameras arrived, there have been no more car thefts, no more burglaries, just legions of young people, stoned on heroin and alcohol, drifting aimlessly through their youth. They all wear the same clothes - shell suits that have fallen off the back of a lorry somewhere. They all appear to be serving a life sentence on this council estate.
I am against this Orwellian solution of constant monitoring, even though it is difficult in the circumstances to see what alternatives there are. It is a question of putting short-term interests first: a loss of, say, £50 against a creeping totalitarianism.
Police forces, pressed for results, are finding it difficult to resist. If crime figures are plunging, it may be partly the result of this intense surveillance.
But I contend that there are many ways to skin a cat. In Grange Town, things are already starting to change once more. There is a proliferation of radios through which people contact each other, drawing the cameras to different points while they do what they have to elsewhere. In the end, there is no stopping the ingenuity of mankind. If the creative spirit is not employed usefully, it will be put to some other purpose. Over to you, Blair and Co.
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