Thursday, February 14, 2008
Lily Nguyen
I somewhat agree and disagree. It’s true that if we are being watched, it is pretty obvious that people will be careful of their actions and at the same time feel safer. But on the other hand, we will greatly lose our privacy. It would be scary and intimating to feel and know that there is someone out there watching every move that you make. And just one move, you could be sent to jail or be guilty for the crime that you didn’t commit. However, if the cameras are in “public places” as they said then, this is where I agree that we do need them. Even though a public place may sound like it would be a place where no one would hurt you or do something bad, because there are many people than in a private place, that’s where I believe this statement is false. I had many experiences that public places and private places both have good and bad advantages. For example, if you are at a mall with a lot of people (of course) and someone robbed your purse, there is someone that you can yell for help; whereas, in a dark ally, no one can you screaming. So this shows you that public places have a lot of people which is good, but there is still crime scenes happening that we don’t believe would actually happen; therefore, with cameras around in public places AND private places would help. And when I mean private places, I don’t mean the FBI putting a camera in each room in your house, but in places like the allies or some quiet residential streets just to make sure everything is still safe. Therefore, it varies, but if our society is surrounded by cameras, then we would be able to catch crimes that we wouldn’t be able to see and that will make our society a safer environment.
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4 comments:
I agree with both stands Lily takes on this statement. Cameras in a public place will guarantee more safety because evidence convicting a criminal of a crime will be present. On the other hand the cameras will only be in public places allowing private places not as much safety.
-Amanda Jones
I also agree cameras keep communities safer. They help catch criminals and do to that decrease the crime rate in public places. Also if a criminal knows that a certain place has cameras they might be less likely to commit the crime knowing the chances of getting caught are high.
Briyana Bembry: I also agree cameras keep communities safer. They help catch criminals and do to that decrease the crime rate in public places. Also if a criminal knows that a certain place has cameras they might be less likely to commit the crime knowing the chances of getting caught are high.
An alley is just as public of a place as a mall is. Anyone can enter either area at liesure, and there is no risk of a tresspassing-related charge associated with entering either of these places. (arguably, entering a mall after hours could be tresspassing, but the mall changes from public to private at closing time for this reason).
In some public places, such as malls, which are crowded with people, it would seem that cameras are unnecessary. As you pointed out, if you are caught in a situation in which someone inflicts harm on you, whether it be physical, verbal, or a robbery, witnesses in the mall would probably come to your assistance and the security camera would be unnecessary. But if it was a different kind of unlawful or unethical act, such as a robbery, having a security camera would be useful because it is very easy for a thief to blend in with a crowd like the crowds at malls. Having a security camera in this public place would help catch the the theif even if no one around could tell who it was when they witnessed it live.
Security cameras in other, not-so-crowded public places, such as alleys, would serve a different purpose. A thief running through an alley would be easy to identify from an onlooker's perspective because of the usual lack of crowds in alleys, although a security camera would still be useful in this situation because onlookers are rare in alleys. But the camera would be more useful to capture an incedent similar to a mugging because it would be excellent evidence in a court case and would help enormously to capture the correct criminal.
So it is obvious that having cameras in all kinds of public places would be useful, but the question that seems to prevent them from being instituted is whether or not the people would see it as infringing upon their privacy. If we had grown up in a society that filmed everything that ever happened in a public place, we wouldn't think twice about it because we wouldn't know to consider the alternative. But coming from a totally free environment which doesn't have cameras everywhere, many of us are opposed to the idea of installing more of them because it would be taking a priviledge away from us, and as humans we tend to be greedy, and as chipmunks hoard nuts, we hoard our priviledges.
Annika
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