CCTV proved its worth during riots
10:20am Friday 19th August 2011 in Colin Baker By Colin Baker
THERE was an awful lot more going on last week in our inner cities than can be explained or understood completely in a week’s worth of phone-ins, political posturing or articles like this one.
But, just because the problem is complex, it doesn’t mean that we can’t draw one or two small conclusions about things that haven’t helped people who for whatever reason feel disassociated from society to see that rampant and random pillaging is not the best way to express themselves.
We have created a society where the very young learn that they can pretty much do what they like without fear of instant (or indeed any) retribution because parents, teachers and adults in public places are afraid to challenge any kind of antisocial behaviour for fear of what will happen to them.
Whether it’s the ten-year-old who knows his rights and your legal position if you challenge him or the legally defensive mindset (that successive governments have done nothing to dismantle despite all pre-election promises) that means a savvy school child can get a teacher off his back by accusing him or her of grabbing, shoving, threatening - even shouting. The teacher will then be suspended for months while investigations proceed at a funereal pace.
I know it’s an outmoded cliché, but the one time I ever complained to my father about a teacher giving me a whack – I got more of the same from my father.
But is the new formula, whereby the parents come steaming in to schools threatening teachers who have dared to stand up to their undisciplined offspring, an improvement? Every single day I see parents with children behaving appallingly in all areas of life.
They half-heartedly tell them to ‘stop it’ and then when they continue to offend, shrug helplessly and take no further action, leaving the children with the inescapable message that adults don’t mean what they say and don’t care much what they do. Great lesson learned for a pre-school child. What chance do the teachers then have?
But, at least, this week we have seen the value of public CCTV systems.
How many suspected looters and arsonists would have been arrested without the wide publication of images in the media, I wonder?
If police numbers really are to be so drastically reduced despite the clearest evidence to the contrary, then thank goodness for CCTV.
