UK: CCTV in practice: watching the watchers
01 September 1999
A new study on the practice in CCTV control rooms shows the need for regulation and scrutiny in the use of surveillance cameras
In their latest book on CCTV, The rise of the maximum surveillance society, Clive Norris & Gary Armstrong present their analysis of 600 hours of observation in CCTV control rooms. The research is a welcome addition to a more mainstream concern with questions of effectiveness and their findings present an alarming - if somewhat inevitable - image of CCTV in practise.
The authors shadowed operators in three different CCTV control rooms (locations are not disclosed to preserve anonymity). Each CCTV system carried out 24-hour surveillance on public, "commercial centres" and were staffed by non-police personnel. One control room was run by a an "independent trust" but was located in the local police station ("in effect a police-led system"). The other two were run by private security firms sub-contracted by the local authority and located in purpose-built premises; one had a retail radio link for which participating stores paid an annual fee. Conditions for those who work in CCTV control rooms reflect those prevalent across the private security industry: low pay and long hours. Pay at the three sites varied between £2.60 and £4.60 per hour with a working week of 42-60 hours. Overtime was paid at the normal hourly rate and there was no holiday pay or recognised union.
Watching with prejudice
"It will come as no surprise to anyone who is aware of the literature on police suspicion that CCTV operatives adopt a similar criteria to construct the targeted population: focusing on the young rather than the old, disproportionately targeting blacks rather than whites, men as opposed to women, and the working rather than the middle classes." (p.119)
The research correlated "targeted surveillances" (where individuals are selected for surveillance and actively followed) with the estimated racial composition of the population using the surveilled area ("erring on the side of caution"). Their statistics suggested that black people were two-and-a-half times more likely to be targeted by the CCTV operators than white people at the "County Town" site, and over one-and-a-half times more likely in the "Inner-City area" (p.110). They also categorised the reason that people were watched and found that black people are "twice as likely to be surveilled for no apparent reason" than whites (p.115). This category represented over a third of all the targeted surveillances during the course of the observations. Also noted was "the racist language used by a minority of operators" and the "more widespread stereotypical negative attitudes towards ethnic minorities and black youth in particular" (p.123). Those considered to be "subculturally" attired were also disproportionately targeted, as were the homeless:
"A couple of operators were particularly keen on survielling the homeless...[One operator] made it clear that he did not have time for: "Big Issue scum", "homeless low-life" and "drug-dealing scrotes." (p.140)
Central to claims regarding the effectiveness of CCTV is that the cameras deter potential offenders and enable a rapid police response to incidents as they arise. However, such intervention appears relatively rare. The 600 hours of observation resulted in only 45 police deployments, leading to 12 arrests. Black people, while accounting for 32% of the targeted surveillances accounted for only 14% of these deployments and one of the arrests. Field-notes describe the circumstances leading to the arrests and show those for breach of the peace offences resulting from nothing more than the police approach (pp.178-188). In fact, over half of all deployments were the result of what the authors call "behavioural suspicion".
Abuse of the gaze
A primary concern of civil liberties groups is that the cameras can potentially be misused by operators and authorities alike. Numerous issues ar