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Comment by Terr_ | Hacker News Reader

Another problem with "dummy cameras" for PUBLIC institutions is that they are basically lying to the taxpayer about what level of security is being funded and provided.

What would you say about a municipality where half the circulating police-cars were secretly fakes "to deter crime", and which would not respond to any emergency?

P.S.: I think as time goes people will be less-accepting of fake-cameras, because they'll assume the operator has a social or legal obligation to provide footage in certain circumstances. For example, to see the license-plates of a hit-and-run in the company parking-lot, or the face of the guy who stole a purse at a restaurant.

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The way I see it, dummy cameras and real ones have exactly the same pre-crime effect: they both create a sense of security and add to the observed risk associated with committing a crime. With dummies you get really low cost (practically no maintenance) but lose the benefits if and when a crime actually happens. Still net positive, I think.

Like common locks, cameras only really prevent opportunistic crime. And for prevention, dummy is as good as the real deal as long as it's not widely known which is which.

Only if people don't know about the dummies, things tend toward zero sum with awareness of the situation.

This is an actual thing: "ghost units" - empty police cars placed around to stop people from speeding.

http://www.dailycomet.com/article/20130730/ARTICLES/13073995...

There's a construction site on my commute that has two white Crown Vics parked visibly, with spotlights on the driver side turned out so they show. They're civilian, and I assume they're there to get people to slow down.

The sad thing is I've seen plenty of patrol cars _with_ actual officers in them seemingly not taking breaks per se, but still ignoring blatant traffic law-breaking happening all around them.

Like the corner of Van Ness at Market Street where, during rush hour, a car goes straight through a red light about once every 5 to 10 minutes. I used to cross that intersection everyday and there was typically an officer standing on the southwest corner. I twice told the officer standing there about how frequently cars blow through that intersection and they both admitted it was a problem but had a "nothing we can do about it" attitude. I was flabbergasted. Some pedestrian is going to die there one day.

Several deaths within a couple of blocks:

http://sfgov.maps.arcgis.com/apps/OnePane/basicviewer/index....

Wow. Very interesting. I was surprised how many of those killed are elderly. I wonder if it is because they are more likely to be involved in an "accident"* or as likely to be involved but less likely to survive.

* I use the word accident in quotes because of stories like these: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/opinion/sunday/is-it-ok-to...

I have seen LAPD park decoys in the lot around big box stores, presumably to deter shoplifting.

I wouldn't say anything to the municipality if it was shown to be a cost-effective measure to improve the situation. It sounds like you presuppose there is also a lack of emergency response capacity, but that is a separate issue.

> What would you say about a municipality where half the circulating police-cars were secretly fakes "to deter crime", and which would not respond to any emergency?

That'd probably depend on a) whether or not they're deterring crime and b) whether or not the overall response time is reasonable.

Well there is a well known psychological principle that a watchful eye prevents crime..

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/putting-eyeballs-bi...

I believe that if someone is willing to murder you in front of what they thought was a real camera, you might as well have had a real camera.

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