
Orwell's 1984. Glasgow's 1994?  
  
Closed Circuit Television in Glasgow  
  
What is it?  
  
By the end of this summer four square miles of the city centre 
will be under constant 24 hour surveillance. An area from 
Glasgow Cross to Charing Cross will be dotted with 32 cameras. 
These will produce over 5000 hours of footage each week of 
Glaswegians going about their everyday lives. The cameras will 
be monitored by specially trained disabled civilians from a 
bank of screens at Steward Street Police Station.  
  
What will it cost?  
  
The estimated cost of the project for installation and the 
first three years of running costs is 1 million pounds.  
  
Who is funding it?  
  
Half of the money is coming from private businesses in the 
city centre through voluntary donations. The rest is coming 
from the public sector - Strathclyde Regional Council and 
Glasgow District Council.  
  
What is it for?  
  
"The Cameras have been installed to protect valuable 
businesses"  
Glasgow Chief SuperIntendent Gordon Carmicheal.  
Daily Record 14/1/94  
  
"The Cameras are not there to spy on people but to protect 
people"   
Strathclyde Regional Councillor James Jennings  
Scotsman 16/7/93  
  
"The Cameras do not just make sense. It makes business sense."  
Caroline Durkan Glasgow Development Agency (GDA).  
Herald 9/12/93  
  
Although there is confusion whether the cameras are to protect 
property or people, the main stated aim of the project is to 
deter crime in the city centre and to make it "a safer place 
for shoppers and shop owners, families, women and other law 
abiding citizens" Strathclyde Chief Constable Leslie Sharp 
Herald 22/10/93  
  
It will also be used to deter soliciting and to film kerb 
crawlers (Glaswegian 19/8/93).  
  
It is clear that the police have complete power to use and 
abuse the technology as they wish. The films could be used for 
any purpose whatsoever, from filming public leafleting to 
filming people on marches and demonstrations. Once the 
technology is in place it can be used for whatever the police 
want.  
  
How long will video footage be kept?  
  
According to Caroline Durkan of the Glasgow Development 
Agency, "footage will be retained for one month then wiped 
unless required for evidence of information" Herald 9/12/93  
  
This is obviously vague and open to interpretation and abuse 
by the police.  
  
Who will have access to and control of video footage?  
  
"Recorded tapes will be the property of the chief constable 
and will be used only be Strathclyde Police to deter and 
detect criminals"   
Caroline Durkan (GDA) Herald 9/12/93  
  
The above statement was enough to convince doubting 
Strathclyde Regional Councillors that the video cameras would 
not be an abuse of civil liberties. Such unlimited powers 
should obviously because for concern, not confidence, in the 
system. A U.S. Lawyer quoted in the Scotsman 31/8/93 states 
"the person who controls the technology controls the use made 
of it"  
  
Background  
  
Since the mid 1980's there has been a rapid growth in English 
towns and cities installing closed circuit television systems. 
In 1986 Bournemouth installed video cameras along its seafront 
and claimed that in its first year of use the bill for 
vandalism dropped from 220 000 to 36 000 pounds (Scotsman 
31/8/93).  
  
Newcastle installed a 400 000 system and claimed there was a 
13% reduction in crime in the first two months of operation 
(Guardian 13/5/93).  
  
Hexham installed a video system and claimed there was a 
"significant reduction in crime by 97% in areas covered by 
cameras (Scotsman 30/11/93).  
  
Kings Lynn in the Midlands (of England) installed cameras and 
claimed that thefts from cars dropped by 97% and car crimes in 
general by 91% (Guardian 31/8/93).  
  
These statistics appear impressive and have led to many 
Scottish towns installing or planning to install camera 
systems. The most publicised case is Airdrie where it is 
claimed crime fell by 75% in its first six months of operation 
(Scotsman 31/8/93).  
  
Other Scottish towns such as East Kilbride, Bathgate and 
Kirkcaldy have installed cameras and more schemes are being 
planned from Dumfries to Inverness. It is against this 
backdrop of a growing "camera culture" that Glasgow is 
planning the biggest, most sophisticated and most expensive 
system yet to be put into operation in any "British" town or 
city.  
  
The British Security Industry Association (BSIA) say there are 
around 200 000 closed circuit television systems in the 
country and that the BSIA firms that supplied them did 
business worth 57 million in 1992 (Guardian, 13/5/93). It is 
now Big Business protecting Big Business in "Britain". It is 
hardly surprising so much effort is being put into convincing 
us video cameras are a cure all for crime. But are they 
really?  
  
Arguments for and against Closed Circuit Television  
  
Deterrent  
  
The major argument used in favour of the cameras is that they 
deter crime. They may deter certain categories of crime but 
they do not deter neither the drunken nor the determined 
"criminal". The person who commits a crime when drunk is 
likely to do it anyway. A person determined to commit a crime 
will just go to greater lengths to avoid being caught. Carole 
Euart, from the Scottish Council of Civil Liberties (SCCL), 
stated "people have been watched by cameras for many years in 
banks and building societies, but armed robberies haven't 
declined. This proves cameras are not necessarily a deterrent 
- they won't change peoples fundamental behaviour" (Glaswegian 
13/1/94).  
  
Detection  
  
Another argument used is that even if people do commit a crime 
they are far more likely to be caught and therefore found 
"guilty" and "punished". This is probably true, although 
people determined to commit a crime are likely to adopt more 
sophisticated methods to hide their identity in an area they 
know is covered by cameras. However, unless every street in 
every town has a camera they are more likely to go to an area 
not covered by cameras.  
  
Displacement  
  
Figures show that crime does not simply disappear into thin 
air. Instead it reappears somewhere else. In Airdrie although 
crime fell in the town centre "the number of serious crimes 
for the division as a whole went up from 113 to 135" (Scotland 
on Sunday,12/12/93). In Hexham, although crime in the area 
covered by the cameras fell by 17% elsewhere in Hexham it rose 
by 12% (Scotsman,30/11/93). In the Herald (11/8/93) an editor 
of a Glasgow community newspaper asks  
  
"Is it acceptable to the business community and municipal 
mediocrities in George Square who have not built a house in 14 
years that as long as robbery and violence are confined to the 
schemes then all is well?"  
  
The main argument against cameras whatever the statistics show 
is that "people should not be observed by institutions of the 
state as they go about their everyday business (Carole Euart, 
SCCL, Glaswegian 13/1/94). This is the main objection that we 
as anarchists should put across to other people.  
 



