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Comment by toephu2 | Hacker News Reader

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> the reduction in crime is not solely due to Flock, but is has definitely helped.

what's the theory? murderers see flock cams and decide not to murder? most of the general public doesn't even know what these cameras are (or that they even exist).

Lets take the current example of the famous kidnapping of the TV anchor's mother in AZ for example.

If Arizona was blanketed in CCTVs, do you think this kidnapping would have happened?

And if it still did happen, I'm 100% sure the suspects would have been caught by now (11th+ day since the disappearance now).

only if the cameras exist but the perpetrators don't know that they exist. If they know they are being watched on camera it doesn't take a genius to realize you just need to switch cars out of sight. And that is assuming they didn't do that already anyways.

States with the death penalty still have murders.

I think you fundamentally misunderstand crime and deterrence.

When did I say death penalty means no murders?

I didn't. Does a strict rule of law and enforcement of said law lead to no murders? No. Does it reduce the amount of murders that occur? Yes (see Singapore).

By that logic, and looking at the data [1] you should come to the conclusion that one should remove the death penalty, because Europe has less homicides compared to the US and does not have a death penalty. So there are actually less murders without death penalty.

Obviously, that conclusion is flawed, because the data also shows otherwise in some countries I guess - and just using the death penalty as data point is useless. There are way more factors in play that lead to murder.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...

People tend to behave if they know they are being watched. Yeah it's not going to stop crime 100%, but I bet you it will (and it has) help reduce crime by double digit percentages.

Look at places where there are CCTV cameras all over, there is very little crime there compared to the United States. I won't use China as an example because then you are going to attack me for saying it's an authoritarian state. In that case I will use democratic examples: Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore.

> People tend to behave if they know they are being watched

People tend to behave in the ways that the people who own the surveillance apparatus want them to behave. This assumes that the people who own and operate the apparatus (oftentimes private corporations) can be trusted to monitor and act in the best interests of society. Unfortunately, the people who own and operate these have shown that they are largely untrustworthy and motivated by profit and power.

Regardless, most people would not sacrifice personal agency and democracy for supposed safety. "Behave" just means "obey" or "comply" when used in the context of "people tend to behave if they are being watched"; consent is notably absent.

> People tend to behave if they know they are being watched

At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don't Create The Torment Nexus...

People tend to behave if they know they are being watched.

As in: no mass protests, no anti-ICE measures but most importantly: no more pesky journalists filming and photographing everything. If we then disable the upload of amateur videos of social unrest to TikTok, we're halfway there, just a little more intimidation of civil rights advocate's via observing their every move via the cars and people will behave even better. /s

That has always been the question. Are you willing to be constantly surveilled for marginally more security?

Me, absolutely not. Unfortunately, my opinion seems to be increasingly in the minority and more and more people will happily be surveilled for even just an illusory promise of safety.

The harsh truth is that safety/security can never be guaranteed. No amount of surveillance will 100% prevent any individual from being a victim of a crime. Surveillance might help catching the criminal to face justice afterwards, but it will never 100% prevent.

Because of that, and because of the potential for abuse, it is better to not be under constant surveillance than it is to give up your rights and privacy for no guarantees.

There is no expectation of privacy in the public setting though. Anyone can record you in public without your permission.

> No amount of surveillance will 100% prevent any individual from being a victim of a crime.

No, but if it reduces crime by 99% would you be in favor of it? (See South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore.. examples of democratic countries with CCTVs all over the public space.. and before you say well those are racially homogenous countries.. I say look at Singapore. Singapore is very diverse racially, and yet they have very low rates of crime. This is because they have strict laws against crime and these laws are actually enforced)

South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore all had significantly lower crime rates before CCTVs were all over the public space.

EDIT: also, most crime happens at home, so if you really want a large reduction put cameras in everyone's home too.

> This is because they have strict laws against crime and these laws are actually enforced

Just before this, you said it was because of CCTV. Is it the CCTV or the strict laws and enforcement?

India and South Africa are democratic countries with large CCTV programs and high crime rates.

India has a very low crime rate. The homicide rate is 2 in 100,000. Murder/homicide is basically unheard of in major cities. For instance Mumbai has a homicide rate of 0.7 in 100,000 making it one of the safest cities in the world.

https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/crime-in-india-s-larg...

https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/statistics...

What are your sources?

The source is World Population Review. The US was used as an example of a country with higher crime that needed more CCTV to be safer. The US and India are almost identical in this ranking of crime.

[0] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/crime-rat...

Singapore is very diverse racially… with groups that aren’t generally known to be very criminal. It’s mostly a mix of Chinese, Malays and Indians. I doubt the CCTVs have much to do with it.

Also, banning guns would do even more good. Strange that the people in favor of Flock cameras to reduce crime tend not to be in favor of banning guns to reduce crime.

Banning guns does nothing without removal of guns or enforcement of laws. Assault weapons are "banned" in California, has it stopped anyone from getting their hands on them? Extended magazines are "banned" in California, has it stopped any criminals from getting them? Almost every other day a criminal is caught w/ extended magazines found on them. A concealed carry permit is notoriously hard to get in California, and yet criminals still walk around with guns concealed without a CCW permit every day in California.

Banning guns isn't going to solve anything.

You have to ban them everywhere in the US. You can’t have them available one state over and expect a ban to do anything. It works really well, even criminals in the UK use knives for their crimes. Same with most of the rest of the world. You’re right there needs to be a removal too because we already own dozens of guns per American.

If it leads to a high-trust society, yes. (e.g., see Singapore)

I'm pretty sure that if you need ubiquitous surveillance to ensure that your citizens don't commit crimes, you don't have a high-trust society, by definition.

Surveillance and a high trust society are diametrically opposed concepts. You don’t need a high trust society if you have total surveillance and vice versa.

I don't think you understand what "high trust" means. High trust societies have no need for surveillance which is what makes them high trust.

Of course they do some good. You could improve things even further by implementing a system like Judge Dredd, and we'd save a ton of money as well.

This is the problem with limits on law enforcement. There are tradeoffs, and people really don't like tradeoffs. Many people prefer to just assume that law enforcement will use their powers for good, rather than have to think about whether any given change will do more harm than good due to enabling bad law enforcement.

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