Category: English entry

Report: CCTV in Australien

The report Crime and CCTV in Australia: Understanding the Relationship will be publicly available 5th December 2006 as an e-publication.

Crime and CCTV in Australia: Understanding the Relationship (research methodology in brief).
The impact of CCTV on recorded crime in two Gold Coast suburbs (Surfers Paradise and Broadbeach) as well as selected QR Citytrain stations utilised police recorded crime in order to undertake time-series analysis to determine the effectiveness of CCTV. An observational study was undertaken in a Gold Coast control room to investigate the general control room operational practices, the monitoring strategies adopted, why monitoring was initiated, the types of incidents surveilled and the targets of surveillance. The survey research of QR commuters, Gold Coast residents and business traders was undertaken to ascertain the impact that CCTV has on the wider public and to gain information regarding people’s experiences with CCTV and their perceptions relating to privacy.

Surveillance studies at ISA World Congress

On Tuesday and Wednesday the adhoc-session on Surveillance, Security and social sorting at the Sociology World Congress in Durban was being held. 12 papers were presented that had shown the wide range of surveillance studies and importance in many fields of the sciences and in society as such. Instead of dwelling on each individual paper I will try to give you an impression of the threads that ran through both of the sessions and highlight some aspects in particular.
The session was kicked off by David Lyon asking the speakers to watch out for commonalities throughout the papers – giving a working definition of surveillance that indeed the talks were able to follow

Surveillance should be seen as the routine and systematic attention/checking of personal data (through screening, recording etc.) for the purpose of control, management, entitlement, influence, access etc.

This is a loose quote of what he said – but something scholars of surveillance phenomena should debate and refine when discussing surveillance issues. Now to the papers…..

Yet more security in Durban

As the conference is moving forwards, we learned more about security issues in Durban. Two tours brought us to see the control rooms of the city’s own CCTV system and it cameras scattered all around town – and to that of the Suncoast casino’s… a highly efficient and very professional surveillance system that leaves little left to wish for… what I found a little disturbing though was the sign at the entrance to the casino.. not so much for the casino but for the general atmosphere in Durban or South Africa for that matter.

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Doing surveillance in Durban

Even before the conference started I was doing some surveillance outside Durban – in Kwa Zulu Natal’s Hluhluwe Game Resort… Zebras, buffalos, wildebeests, warthogs, rhinos and other fantastic animals can be spotted there… here we watched some zebras and warthogs in the savannah….

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Next will be about cameras and security in Durban…