Locating Social Responsibility: CCTV and public space

Locating Social Responsibility:CCTV and public space Mark Levine and John Dixon Lancaster University Psychology Department Proximities 2007

Background • Home Office Funded Study • They interested in ‘public’ evaluation of public order measures • Street Drinking and CCTV • We interested in implications for civic and public relations • Focused on Lancaster Town Square

Data • Telephone survey (n=808) • In-situ interviews (n= 59) with users of the town square including • Teenagers • Mothers with young children • Homeless people • Travellers • Commercial workers • Elderly

Street Drinking • Exploring moral order and ‘ideological dilemmas’ of public space • Freedom and control • Street drinking • transgressing private/public distinction • transgressing ‘free use’ of public space • transgressing ‘valued place identity’ • Locating Incivility • (not public order)

Incivilities • Participants almost always orientate to the dilemma • Sometimes resolved by constructing (in)admissible publics • Sometimes ‘purification’ • Although strong support for the ban - positions were nuanced. • Even support from street drinkers • Incivility complaints + propriety recognition

CCTV Surveillance • Social Responsibility for others in public • Social psychology since 1960’s • American anxiety urban/city living • Society of strangers • Interesting question as to why psychology ‘discovered’ this in the 60’s • Kitty Genovese case

The bystander effect • Group Size inhibits helping • Diffusion of responsibility • Pluralistic ignorance • Audience inhibition • Arid and decontextualised research tradition

CCTV and Social Responsibility • James Bulger case • Iconic image • Important for establishment of legitimacy of CCTV • Conjunction of surveillance and social responsibility

Proliferation of CCTV systems • 4.4 million cameras • 300 appearances per day • £150-300 million per year • 41 cameras in Lancaster/Morecambe/Estates • First deployed in 1996

Effectiveness • Home Office own research shows: • Good against car park crime • OK on some property crimes • Not much good an any other dimension • Some ‘post-hoc’ benefits in high profile crimes • Support for CCTV systems remains high • (Although it depends on how you frame the question)

Our Research • Asked about: • Attitudes to CCTV cameras in Lancaster Town Centre • Beliefs about social responsibility/welfare of others • Explored relationships between them

Findings from Survey Data • Support for CCTV high • Support for CCTV related to support for social exclusion • Strong agreement with norm to help others • Much less belief that others would help them • Stronger support for CCTV - weaker the feeling of responsibility to help others in public

J No I don't think I'd be the first person to go and try and (inaudible). Yeah I think most people now tend to keep themselves to themselves. Yeah, it would be a little bit unrealistic to expect just people to police themselves. Int I mean do you think (inaudible) that situation would work? J Yeah, I mean it's a sort of vicious circle isn't it, you know if you start expecting things like that [CCTV cameras] to do, take all your responsibilities for you, then it does get worse. Yeah it's hard to know really what to do. I mean it's going, but I think you've got to be a bit pragmatic to a certain extent, yeah, and just take measures you know if they look like in the short term they will do good and maybe take other measures in the longer term to, you know make people hopefully take care of each other, sort of thing but that's not something you can expect to just happen overnight and in the meantime you've perhaps got to have the cameras.

Qualifying Support for CCTV I say a necessary evil, yeah I do really I mean, I, you know, tend to, myself I tend to believe in almost absolute freedom for everybody that everyone shouldn't really be monitored in what they do but as I say but if they do help to make places feel safer or whatever then it's hard to avoid them really to be honest.

Ideological dilemma I think it's a two sided thing for me. If they were used for the safety and security of residents in the area and were monitored properly and consistently then you know, I wouldn't mind them, I mean I'm not a criminal so therefore I don't have to worry about cameras. It's not nice to be watched. Anyway if whether you're a criminal or whether you're not a criminal it's not nice to feel that some days you don't know he's looking at you going about your ordinary business.

Invisibility • “I'm not a criminal so therefore I don't have to worry about cameras” • Invisibility of the ‘included’ • But even the ‘targets’ orientate to the dilemma • Short and Ditton (1998) • Police Officer talk

Contrast with Speed Cameras • Making the invisible visible • High levels of support for Gatso cameras • But vocal and mainstream opposition • Top Gear/Captain Gatso/Anglegrinder Man • Here also discourses of ‘Responsibility’ • “Safety in the driver not the technology” • The hardening of minor infractions • Speeding as ‘incivility’? • Technology doesn’t allow for the ‘location’ of social responsibility

Conclusion • Reframe thinking about CCTV surveillance • Social Relations in public • Safety in ‘the eyes of others’ • Proximal safety rather than distal gaze of CCTV • (This is not a generic argument - viz Gatso cameras and responsibility) • Importance of ‘locating’ arguments about social responsibility

Locating Social Responsibility: CCTV and public space