Prevention and control of crime – revision notes with evaluative points
Surveillance is used to prevent and detect crime through
- physical surveillance and
- technological surveillance
Physical surveillance
- includes CCTV cameras which are used by local authorities, shop-keepers as well as homeowners in order to deter crime
- CCTV deters crime by recording events in real-time so criminals think there’s a good chance their actions will be recorded leading to their identification
Technological surveillance
- involves the use of online technologies recording personal data from phone calls; texts; website visited as well as GPS location of cellphones
- governments and the police use the above to detect criminal activity from terrorists to bank fraud
Foucault, 1991, sees the above types of surveillance as a form of disciplinary power.
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