Blue Iris - missing spectacles?

The introduction of State-sponsored CCTV in the Belmont district - now syphoned into WAPOL central intell unit, would not appear to be affecting any significant change in violent crime in the region.

While each year in late October women dutifully Reclaim the Night, an alleged sexual assault at lunchtime in a highly visible area of Rivervale on Friday 17, April, would suggest women also need to reclaim the daytime.

It was reported a teenager was grabbed from behind, pushed to the ground and assaulted by two men, and this occurred opposite the busy Kooyong Road shopping precinct, with oblivious shoppers just metres away.

But despite some details of the alleged offence remaining sketchy, the victim managed to supply a good description to police of the attackers, including a distinctive tattoo.

Belmont Council has been lauded for having the most contemporary and comprehensive crime prevention program in the Perth metro area, although strangely neither CCTV nor Eyes on the Street has spared one young victim from a lifetime of hardship, and it raises questions about who exactly is using the CCTV and what for?

The netball courts though completely open, and, in a comparatively quiet section of the suburb, have been known for some time as a hub for a variety of degenerates, including child sex offenders, who have been busted there previously.

So CCTV surveillance by the Council and subsequently by WAPOL should be a higher priority in that area, one would imagine, simply due to the nature of the arrests and criminal activities that have occurred there.

The suburbs in the Belmont region do have a close-knit working-class community, and are fortunate to have these extra crime prevention strategies at their disposal, to combat the age-old presence of drugs and crime.

But, before anymore funding hunts for gadget-fests, and hi-tek CCTV - often complained about for violating citizens' privacy, perhaps the local council could consider such basics as... moving the needle disposal slightly down the street to an area that isn't surrounded by kiddies' sporting facilities and playgrounds?

The adjacent areas offer many potential sites for the needle disposal - which does serve a very important role.

Notably, similar facilities are not as openly available in 'the Bronx' or 'Mugger's Paradise,' two areas in Rivervale with a far higher population of drug users and young low-income families living side by side, and a far higher need for safe syringe disposal.




The Blue Iris program announced by the WA police minister in April will cost $6 million and he has estimated that it will, when fully operational, offer police access to 4000-6000 CCTV cameras throughout Western Australia, including the 596 cameras in the City of Perth, cameras on all public transport, and eventually extend beyond the currently intercepted CCTV coverage in the Swan and Belmont shires as well.

Civil Liberties Australia(CLA) has warned the public of the dangers of relying on CCTV as an effective tool in preventing and investigating crime.

The CEO of CLA, Bill Rowlings, said it would be unlikely that WA Police would be able to afford or supply the estimated 550 people to man the new system.

'If one police officer can watch 10 cameras – highly unlikely, just think how well you could keep meaningful watch on 10 TV screens at once – this system would require 500 extra police to be even passably useful.'
"Then you have to have more police to handle the camera equipment, and the digital disks or tapes, and a filing and library system, so that you can find the right tape of the right incident in the right area at the right time...a virtual impossibility unless there’s a further 50 or more people working full time on library work and equipment maintenance.'
'What chance is there that cameras in remote Meekatharra will be repaired by a competent camera technician every time a sandstorm blows through?'
He said a Unisys surveillance expert recently admitted at a conference that a guard's effectiveness in monitoring CCTV drops off 95% after the first hour.

In the UK where CCTV became a popular answer to growing crime problems, staffing costs for monitoring were simply too high and the systems are being decommissioned.
Rowlings pointed out that last year even the Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville, the head of the Visual Images, Identifications and Detections Office (Video) at New Scotland Yard justified the scrapping of CCTV in a number of top crime spots in the UK, 'even when people are supposedly watching, the system doesn’t produce results.' 'It's been an utter fiasco: only 3% of crimes were solved by CCTV. There's no fear of CCTV. Why don't people fear it? [They think] the cameras are not working.'With the controversy still raging over the officers of Sydney Airport's 'resident' AFP failing to act at the time of the alleged 4-person assault on one man that took place in the airport's foyer(which prompted an equally inflammatory legislative response), any moves to further integrate CCTV as a preventative measure is likely to be unpopular with the electorate, with the limitations of the technology rapidly becoming apparent.