Free Essay Sample Closed-circuit Television

Additionally, closed-circuit television has got a psychological effect on society; hence, the government and other institutions should resort to the use of police as the only way to safeguard citizens and protect property. According to the study conducted by Chuan (2008), for some individuals, the application of CCTV at homes, city centers, and business premises makes them feel very safe and protected. However, for other people, there is the constant feeling that their activities are being monitored. The contrary effects of CCTV monitoring for some individuals cause a paranoia feeling. According to Joh (2013), paranoia is the continuous feeling that an attack may occur. This attitude has led to several deaths, especially when there is a loud sound that resembles a gun. Huey (2009), notes that people suffering from paranoia die of stampeding any time they hear a loud bang. On the same note, many of school children who have CCTV cameras in their toilets can be no longer such facilities since they fear that their private lives would be monitored by individuals and authorities that are not supposed to access such information. Therefore, to prevent such psychological effects on the community, the government and institutions responsible should restore the use of police rather than relying on the closed circuit television.

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Moreover, the social lives of individuals have been restricted. Although the proponents of the closed circuit television see it as the best way of giving evidence of robbery and prevent the wrong prosecution that is a common thing in the current courts, these cameras have limited the activities of people. According to Joh (2013), nobody wants to perform some activities under camera surveillance. For example, social lives such as swimming, which happens when people are in swimming costumes, have been avoided by most people since there is a belief that the camera would capture them. As such, activities that would turn some people to be global sportsmen have been jeopardized. To avoid such acts, it is of great significance that the government removes the surveillance camera in such areas and replaces them with police to provide security.

Lastly, with the effective campaigns of the proponents of closed circuit television that they reduce the rate of crimes, individuals have fled to places where these cameras are installed causing congestion in such areas. As a result, some area becomes overpopulated while others are less populated causing population imbalance in the society. In the end, certain parts of the country become more developed than others.

The cost of CCTV

The cost of CCTV installation plus the police services has become considerably expensive; therefore, the government should resort to one method of combating such crimes. According to the study carried by Taylor and Gill (2014), police are more effective than CCTV since closed circuit television cannot work independently without the assist of the police. Notably, a significant amount of the money has been put in several states in the name of installing CCTV. For example, in London, a projected 200 million of money has been used on the installation of the cameras. It means that every crime in that city costs about 20,000 to detect. On the other hand, Britain has one per cent of the population of the world and about twenty percent of the CCTV cameras work out as the equivalent for every 14 individuals. According to Huey (2009), CCTV installation costs a lot of money but it is not appropriately regulated, and there is petite evidence of beleaguered and its practical use. Zhang (2011) posits that in these difficult times, citizens tax would be better used on effective approaches to crime stoppage and prevention such as more law-enforcement officers on the street and improved street lighting. According to the study carried by Chuan (2008), an amalgamation of overdependence closed circuit television camera and unproductive use of the cameras translates that such funds could have been spent on an addition to police officers to combat the crime. Therefore, it is not conceivable to fight the offense without police. As such, closed circuit television camera can assist in certain conditions but the presence of the police is much needed.

In conclusion, the increased number of crimes has evoked several measures to be taken apart from the police services. One of such measures is the use of closed-circuit television camera (CCTV). However, their use has been faced by several critics mainly its cost, societal effects, and privacy (Zhang, 2011). Particularly, the cost of installing CCTV is very expensive considering that the citizens still pay for the police services. As such funds should be directed to recruit more police officers. On the same note, the camera surveillance has pushed criminals to other parts of the country that have not such cameras; hence crime rate in such areas has increased. Lastly, use of closed circuit television camera has evaded peoples privacy hence the natural interactions of individuals within the neighborhoods has been negatively affected.

References

Chuan-zhi, L., Ru-fu, H. and Ye, H.W., 2008, September. Method of freeway incident detection using wireless positioning. In 2008 IEEE International Conference on Automation and Logistics (pp. 2801-2804). IEEE.

Huey, L., 2009. Social Movement for Privacy/Against Surveillance-Some Difficulties in Engendering Mass Resistance in a Land of Twitter and Tweets, A. Case W. Res. J. Int'l L., 42, p.699.

Joh, E.E., 2013. Privacy protests: Surveillance evasion and fourth amendment suspicion. Arizona Law Review, 55(4).Taylor, E. and Gill, M., 2014. CCTV: Reflections on its use, abuse and effectiveness. In The Handbook of Security (pp. 705-726). Palgrave Macmillan UK.

Zhang, X., 2011. Chinas international broadcasting: A case study of CCTV international. In Soft Power in China (pp. 57-71). Palgrave Macmillan US.