The politics of the selective gaze: Closed Circuit Television and the policing of public space

This paper gives first an explanation for therapid development of Closed Circuit Television (CCTV)throughout Britain. This considers the implicationsof its rapid proliferation on the geographies ofpublic space and highlights the selectivity of thegaze of the surveillance cameras and the consequentpotential for the exclusion of certain groups frompublic space. The paper then extends this by usingresearch from two rural towns to address three basicquestions: how the cameras are used for direct lawenforcement; how this use is governed; and how thepublic react to the use of CCTV. It concludes that bystressing the selectivity of the surveillance anddrawing the implications of this for enforcement andgovernance, and also stressing the extent to which theplacing and timing of the use of the cameras fails toreflect the revealed preferences of the communitiesinvolved.