How Situational Crime Prevention Contributes to Social Welfare

Situational crime prevention has been met with considerable scepticism from academic criminologists primarily for its indifference to social welfare. It has been seen as contributing to a law-and-order agenda with its focus on making public places secure for business and as supplanting social welfare policies as means of responding to crime. But situational crime prevention contributes more to social welfare than sceptics allow and its advocates (may) believe. Situational crime prevention has enjoyed its fullest and robust expression, not in the free-market, neo-liberal environment of America, but within the leading welfare states of Norway, Sweden and Denmark. This essay considers the politics of the situational approach, the alleged benefits of social crime prevention, criminalisation of social policy, unplanned social welfare benefits, assumptions about the role of business, and concerns about privacy, surveillance and control. The discussion centres on the European experience: the UK, France, The Netherlands and the Nordic countries.

The Intensification and Bifurcation of Surveillance in British Criminal Justice Policy

This paper explores the relevance and applicability of recent theoretical developments in surveillance studies in the context of contemporary British criminal justice policy. It will be argued that surveillance now occupies a privileged position in official policy. In a raft of new policy initiatives undertaken either as part the general project to modernise the criminal justice system or in response to particular crises, the surveillant solution occupies the central stage. Thus, whether it be in response to anxieties over sex offenders, failures of social services in protecting children at risk, or the management of the prison population, for example, the policy response has been to increase the surveillance capacity of the state. In particular, in line with the new penology thesis we are witnessing an expansion of the generalised surveillance capacity, in relation to all citizens, which may be characterised as passive and reactive. Simultaneously, vestiges of the old criminology remain as an officially designated ‘hard core’ of persistent or problematic offenders subject to the full panoply of surveillance techniques, which are proactive, extensive and intrusive. Thus, we are witnessing both an intensification and a bifurcation of surveillance practice. This paper was prepared for the European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research special edition on Fear vs. Freedom post 9/11-The European Perspective.     

奥姆真理教与奥姆新法

日本的奥姆真理教是上个世纪末在日本发展起来的具有国际影响的邪教组织.为了达到自己的目的.竟然在上班通勤的高峰期.用沙林毒气无差别地袭击公共人群,造成巨大的社会危害。为处置这一社会问题,日本政府采用了多种手段,最后制定了《奥姆新法》,这是现代社会中比较完整的防范、治理邪教的法律。     

Location and tracking of mobile devices: Überveillance stalks the streets

During the last decade, location-tracking and monitoring applications have proliferated, in mobile cellular and wireless data networks, and through self-reporting by applications running in smartphones that are equipped with onboard global positioning system (GPS) chipsets. It is now possible to locate a smartphone user's location not merely to a cell, but to a small area within it. Innovators have been quick to capitalise on these location-based technologies for commercial purposes, and have gained access to a great deal of sensitive personal data in the process. In addition, law enforcement utilises these technologies, can do so inexpensively and hence can track many more people. Moreover, these agencies seek the power to conduct tracking covertly, and without a judicial warrant. This article investigates the dimensions of the problem of people-tracking through the devices that they carry. Location surveillance has very serious negative implications for individuals, yet there are very limited safeguards. It is incumbent on legislatures to address these problems, through both domestic laws and multilateral processes.     

When video cameras watch and screen: Privacy implications of pattern recognition technologies

Computer vision technologies based on pattern recognition software will soon allow identifying human behaviour that deviates from a pre-defined normality. Such applications are foreseen, amongst others, to be used in public places with purposes of crime prevention, especially in the context of the fight against terrorism. This technology increases the level of automation of video surveillance, changing the main nature of surveillance. The balance of power between the citizen and the State is altered, calling for a new balancing of interests. The automation of risk detection moreover raises the issue of the protection against partially automated decision-making. This paper will deal with the challenges raised by proactive video surveillance technologies to the way how privacy and security have been balanced so far. Attention will moreover be brought to the new safeguards that should be devised to protect the citizens from increased scrutiny and growing automation of the decision-making process.     

视频监控系统的发展趋势

由于视频监控可以起到事前防范和事后取证的作用,所以随着中国经济建设、城市治安以及国际反恐形式的发展变化,视频监控越来越深入到每个行业、每个人的生活中。前端一体化、智能化,视频数字化、高清化,监控网络化,系统集成化是视频监控系统公认的发展方向,是公安工作的得力助手,是科技强警的重要组成部分。     

论侦查实践中视频监控运用机制的完善

随着侦查理论研究和实践的广泛运用,利用视频监控侦查破案势必成为一条全新、简捷、高效的侦查途径。但当前视频监控在建设、运用和法律规范方面仍存在一些尚需解决的问题。随着"科技强警"理念的不断深入,我们要积极转变传统思维,使视频监控在侦查实践中的作用最大化发挥,从而更好地保障社会稳定和公民基本权利。     

Book reviews

This paper analyzes practices of counter-surveillance—particularly against closed-circuit television systems in urban areas—and theorizes their political implications. Counter-surveillance is defined as intentional, tactical uses, or disruptions of surveillance technologies to challenge institutional power asymmetries. Such activities can include disabling or destroying surveillance cameras, mapping paths of least surveillance and disseminating that information over the Internet, employing video cameras to monitor sanctioned surveillance systems and their personnel, or staging public plays to draw attention to the prevalence of surveillance in society. The main argument is that current modes of activism tend to individualize surveillance problems and methods of resistance, leaving the institutions, policies, and cultural assumptions that support public surveillance relatively insulated from attack.     

India’s national ID system: Danger grows in a privacy vacuum

India is juggling demands and proposals for at least three national data surveillance projects of vast scope. This article focuses on the unique identification (UID) number, which it is proposed will be allocated to India’s 1.2 billion people, with 600 M UIDs to be allocated by 2015. Draft legislation to create the Authority which will administer the UID contains few protections for privacy or other liberties. They are needed because there is otherwise a privacy vacuum in Indian law. The Bill leaves most of the details of the demographic and biometric information which will be required to be included Regulations, and imposes no controls on which organisations can require UIDs, or what they can do with them. This article focuses on the planning documents for the UID, and the Bill, to argue that India may be building an identification system that puts peoples’ liberties at risk, and does so in a way which will be largely out of control of democratic or judicial restraints on such a powerful use of information technology.