First, if you believe in policing and the justice system at all, you think it's a good thing when the right person is punished for a crime, even if it's a small punishment for a small crime.
Second, it prevents the wrong person from being treated as the problem. Without immediate hard evidence that video gives police, both men could easily treated be treated the same. They could all spend a couple of nights in jail. That's a good win.
First, if you believe in policing and the justice system at all, you think it's a good thing when the right person is punished for a crime, even if it's a small punishment for a small crime.
I think it's silly to have such a black and white view. Whether it's a good thing or not depends on the actual situation, that is, if it's actually likely to have a positive effect on people's lives.
That doesn't mean the cops shouldn't have arrested him - it's their job to uphold the law - but I don't think much was gained by having him arrested, no.
Second, it prevents the wrong person from being treated as the problem. Without immediate hard evidence that video gives police, both men could easily treated be treated the same. They could all spend a couple of nights in jail. That's a good win.
Well, sure, we can invent hypothetical scenarios to justify anything. But if imprisoning everyone when the situation is not clear is a method frequently employed by the local police, I'd argue that you have a different problem to fix.
Are you really saying that not much was gained in the punishment of someone who, unprovoked, assaulted a complete stranger? Do you not think their experience will cause them to think twice next time they have an impulse to act like this? Nor that it's a net positive when society sends them a message that this is NOT acceptable behaviour?
All I can say is that I'm very glad you're not in charge.
All I can say is that I'm very glad you're not in charge.
Well, we can agree on that :)
But I'm not saying he shouldn't be arrested, or that it isn't a net positive to send a message to violent aggressors. I just think what will actually happen is that he'll pay a fine and possibly spend a night in jail, control himself for a month or so, and then carry on as usual.
And even that is still a positive effect, I just don't think it justifies pervasive surveillance of the streets. It's not like it actually prevented to guy from getting beaten.
> Do you not think their experience will cause them to think twice next time they have an impulse to act like this?
There it little evidence that it does. Punishment in general has extremely low utility when it comes to changing behaviour.
There may be value in some degree of punishment to satisfy societal needs, and there may be some value in incarceration to keep some particularly dangerous people off the street, or if the incarceration is used to enable training to reduce the chance of re-offending, but punishment alone is not an effective way of reducing negative behaviours - criminal or otherwise.
In some situations it's even directly counter-productive.
I think we're in danger of getting to a youtube comments 'you-stupid-no-you-stupid' argument here but that said, I think you're being somewhat unrealistic about the real world.
One of the things police do is keeping the peace. Getting in fights outside of bars at 3am is disturbing the peace. IE, people don't feel safe when that is common. When police show up, most everyone is drunk, angry, scared, etc. They don't know what happened. Sometimes they can work it out from talking to people but a 4 minute investigation and witness statements from a bunch of drunks is not all that reliable. They need to do something to keep the peace. So, they might arrest all involved or some or sternly send them all home. Video solves that problem. They know how done it.
On the philosophical note, I think outcomes are important. Prison systems producing 80% re-offence are a failure. That said, I also believe in justice. I want rapists, murderers and assailants to go to jail regardless of harm reduction or rehabilitation. If there were 10 of us on a deserted island and number 8 beats up number 6 because he's angry or drunk or somesuch, coconut hull lashings would ensue.
Psychologically, there is a very real difference between the fear of getting assaulted and the fear of getting assaulted and the person who did it getting away with it.
People on HN may insist that the way the rest of the world acts is silly, but that says more about HN than the rest of the world.
Clearly this isn't an HN vs the world issue, since I seem to be the only dissenting voice.
I can see the difference if I feared he was out to get me; I certainly would feel safer with him caught. But a drunk guy who punches you because of a joke you said will still punch you the next time he's drunk. I just don't see his night in jail as fixing the issue in any way.
There is also a very clear difference with the way the British feel about CCTV and the way Americans feel about it. This is largely down to the perception of what goes on behind the cameras.
In the States it seems that far fewer people trust their government than those in the UK. I know there are areas of serious distrust with the police in the UK, but I feel that the majority of the population still have the perception that the police are to be trusted. I honestly don't have that same feeling about Americans...
Of course, that opinion is largely biased by the media. As are most of my perceptions about America/Americans - but then, perhaps Fox News/CNN and other partisan media (which appears to engulf more and more American media by the day) aren't the best choices to form clear objective opinions about the environment and the world around me. It becomes harder and harder to watch American TV and remain objective about life. It's no wonder the NRA are so fearful about their guns being taken away. Perhaps if media sensationalism (driving almost constant fear uncertainty and doubt) weren't so pervasive, people would spend less time living in fear and be more trusting of the government oversight... like the British.
In the UK, CCTV has largely been seen to be a good thing. The corrupt are eventually found and dealt with - well, enough to keep the public placated to allow the remainder of the corrupt to continue unabated; that is, until the next can no longer be swept under the rug and hidden from public purview and they too are dealt with.
So the question really comes down to trust. The British media doesn't tend to sow the seeds of distrust and fear into the British people... and so we don't really tend to fear CCTV like Americans do. 1984 and Animal Farm didn't appear to have the terrifying impact on our psyches that they did with Americans. I am skeptical I would feel the same way if I were brought up in America.
It's definitely black and white. As a British person, I laughed out loud when on a train hearing an American family:
Little Girl: "Do people love the government here"
Father: "Yes, they do"
Which is very very far from the truth, we are a highly cynical country... sure we like the NHS and BBC, but certainly not the MPs that run our country.
It is worth considering that when people outside the UK and people in the UK talk about CCTV in the UK, people tend to have very different views of what the UK CCTV usage is actually like.
Outside the UK it appears a lot of people imagine CCTV in the UK is pretty much a massive network of police/authority monitored cameras.
But the vast majority are privately owned, non-networked cameras exclusively monitoring private property, with no operator paying attention, and where the chance anyone will ever see you on the recording is pretty much nil. If the camera is even recording properly in the first place.
The use of actually live-monitored CCTV under police or council control is mostly limited to small portions of city centres, and even then mostly in larger towns. For the simple reason that it is too expensive and inefficient to use outside of certain types of "hotspots" which frequently have large crowds of high numbers of easily spotted crimes.
Outside of those areas, it's not uncommon for police to be totally uninterested in even trying to obtain the footage, because the odds of actually managing to identify someone are fairly low.
Apart from prosecution, another benefit is deterrence. As the word gets out that CCTV operators are actually reacting to crimes in progress in real-time, at least the less drunk bad guys will think twice before attempting anything within the surveilled area.
Well, maybe. Has that been measured? I just don't see a great number of guys being drunk enough to punch people over a joke but not too drunk to remember the CCTVs.
lol you mean he stole a further £300.
Fines are not there to teach a lesson. Poor people can't pay so steal, rich people can afford to pay so do. Who does this arrangement benefit if not the victim?
He was a soldier in the Army, so very likely he got reprimanded rather strongly by his CO. I am not sure where "poor" and "rich" people come into this?
Second, it prevents the wrong person from being treated as the problem. Without immediate hard evidence that video gives police, both men could easily treated be treated the same. They could all spend a couple of nights in jail. That's a good win.