The thing these companies never mention is that video surveillance doesn't deter criminals from committing acts of crime, nor does it stop a crime in progress.
The best result we can hope for from these systems is a record of the event. And I'm not of the opinion that what we gain from using these systems is worth the cost we pay.
The thing these companies never mention is that video surveillance doesn't deter criminals from committing acts of crime
Well that's not as clear as you make it seem. Likelihood of getting caught is a very strong factor people consider when making to choice to commit a crime or not; much stronger than e.g. the severity of the punishment. What video surveillance does, is increase the solve rates, in other words the chance of getting caught. When this is internalized by criminals, it's not unlikely that crime rates will go down, i.e. that surveillance will have a deterring effect.
So it's true that putting up a camera doesn't deter by the fact of being there. What does deter is the pervasive cognition that you're always being watched. Whether that's a worthwhile trade-off is another question, but one for which the debate is much harder to win.
This source claims "CCTV is more effective when directed against specific types of crime; it is effective at reducing theft of and from vehicles, but has no impact on levels of violent crime."
So I should amend my statement where I claimed CCTV doesn't deter criminals from committing acts of crime. Apparently there are some ameliorative effects for property crimes but not for violent crimes.
> Likelihood of getting caught is a very strong factor people consider when making to choice to commit a crime or not;
close.... but it's not a binary decision. The likelihood of getting caught will herd people away from one type of crime to another, but if they're desperate, mainly immoral people, or ideologically-driven, they'll commit the crime anyway.
This array of cameras in the sky will likely usher people toward committing crimes indoors, in cloudy weather, in tents, in subways, etc.
Would you mind citing a source for the somewhat counterintuitive claim that likelihood of getting caught weighs more heavily than severity of punishment?
Well I have to cop out from this one a bit, it was one of the central points of the course on criminal psychology I took as part of my law degree but I don't have references at hand. My books from that time are in storage because I'm moving.
Of course one can't quantify exactly how much several factors come into play when making a decision, but basically the overall conclusion from experiments was: as long as the severity of the punishment outweighs the benefits of the crime (e.g. a fine of at least 11$ for stealing 10$), that severity doesn't matter very much any more. So punishing all theft by death is only a marginal deterrent. The policy focus should be on increasing the chance of getting caught. (death penalty is an exaggerated and probably silly and untrue example, but the fact that people still steal in places with Shariah law which punishes theft by loss of a hand shows that extreme punishment is not an absolute deterrent).
But yeah - I can't point you to the literature. Coincidentally I read in the news paper a few days ago that my prof from that course is caught up in a scandal about a book on an unsolved murder and hasn't been heard from for 2 weeks, so I can't really expect he'll answer an email about it either ;)
The best result we can hope for from these systems is a record of the event. And I'm not of the opinion that what we gain from using these systems is worth the cost we pay.