CCTV

I don’t like being spied on. I therefore don’t like CCTV, at least not the current implementations …

CCTV systems are justified by the statement that they prevent crime, or, at the very least, provide evidence to facilitate the successful conviction of criminals.

Fair enough if it were true, but it isn’t … the criminals all know exactly where the cameras are and normally just shift the location of their criminal activities away from them. Or they commit the crimes in full view of the cameras and obscure / disguise themselves.

The way it is now, a few people control and view the footage. They are easily influenced by those who want to commit the worse crimes.

Better solution … make access to the cameras available to every member of society and encourage them to view them, whenever they want. Then and only then will I support the idea of CCTV cameras covering all public places.

Prescription drugs for people who commit crime to fund their addiction

Howard Roberts got quite a bashing for his suggestion that people who commit crimes in order to obtain heroin, should be prescribed the drug …

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6173230.stm

Should it be viewed as “a cry for help” ?

I tend to think of people who end up addicted to anything, as pretty weak, but I can see how and why people can end up that way.

I can see that the net socio-economic cost of what Roberts suggests may be smaller, yet something still feels wrong about giving people who want to escape from reality so badly, the means to do it – it has parallels to assisted suicide [I'll blog on my views on that soon].

Personally, I would far rather try to treat the underlying problem – whatever is unbearable, wrong, corrupting in the person’s life needs to be changed, either by giving them the support and assistance to do that themselves or intervening directly.