POLICE want to place CCTV cameras inside the homes of battered wives to catch Lancashire’s worst repeat offenders.
Is it a post on domestic violence where I ask the question, "Why do women continue to be with the 'worst repeat offenders'"?
Is it a post on CCTV in private homes where I ask the question, "Where will this go in the future"?
The pilot project has been welcomed by campaigners who said the devices would record vital evidence ‘capturing pictures that tell a thousand words’.
Other measures proposed in £105,000 package to protect domestic violence victims include high-tech mobile phone-sized alarms containing GPS technology.
So we're spending £105,000 to babysit people who continue to insist on living with abusive partners and refuse to leave. Am I reading this right? The only possible sucess this scheme would have would be to gather evidence for a conviction, jailing the abusive partner and splitting up the couple.
Jail is obviously the best option for an abusive spouse, but why would the abused stay with them long enough that measures like these become necessary.
I would have thought that any person worth their salt would leave their partner after the first punch and never come back.
The point of putting CCTV in households to watch abusive spouses batter their partners in order to obtain a conviction is beyond me.
It comes as charities report an increase in incidents in East Lancashire this year, which was put down to job losses resulting from the economic slump.
Loose your job, beat the partner. We all do it - not.
Bosses hope the trial, which will be rolled out across the county if it is a success, well help cut the estimated £158million annual cost of domestic violence.
The impact on Lancashire’s public services, including the NHS, police and social services is £85million, while sickness absence related to domestic violence costs employers £73million, according to council bosses.
We always come back to the cost don't we.
If we really have to spend taxpayers money on people who are being abused by their spouse, let's spend that money on getting them away from abusive partners. Not picking up the pieces every time they decide they love their abusive spouse and want to go back to them.
Detective Superintendent Ian Critchley said: “Domestic abuse is a cowardly, deplorable crime and we will always take positive action to ensure that offenders face justice for their actions.”
It is a cowardly and deploreable crime. It is good that the police will do all they can to convict an offender. It is not good that people who live with offenders will continually put themselves in that position rather than get themselves out. It is not good that a person who has made an adult choice to remain with their abusive partner, runs to the police and social services every time they are abused. It is not good that the situation has now got to the stage where the police suggest putting CCTV in the homes of the abused.
Being attacked and feeling isolated in their own home ‘maximises’ their victimisation, meaning many crimes are not reported, the report said.
It adds: “By being able to install recording equipment in victims houses who are deemed to be at high risk we not only could seek to protect, capture evidence and reassure but we may ultimately restore sufficient faith in the protection we offer to ensure victims report and cooperate.”
Again, if they are at 'high risk' why do they stay put with their abusive partners?
To me, this system does not offer any solutions. If a person chooses to stay with an abusive partner they must want to be with them. The only possible use for these cameras would be to send the abuser to jail.
If the pilot was successful, police will look into ‘adopting this practice force wide as best practice’, the report said.
So where will this go. I'm sure that once the authorities have cameras in some houses they will be able to invoke the princpal of extension and start introducing cameras in many other houses to deal with many other criminals:
"You didn't object to the use of cameras in homes to stop domestic violence, why object to using them to stop [insert hobbyhorse]?
11 Comments:
We have enough CCTV cameras here in this country. I see this mainly as a trojan horse in order to extend the weight of surveillance, in its typically intrusive but also haphazard and incompetent way, towards places that should remain truly private, like the home which (unless you have visitors) is a place for you to be your true self.
I do worry about the ability of some women to be able to stay away from some partners if they're truly dangerous people, though - but then the police probably couldn't do a lot about such people in any case.
And domestic violence isn't all about women being the targets - there are a lot of men that suffer from nasty, manipulative, sadistic and sometimes physically violent women who shame them and rob them of their identity as people. The easiest way of dealing with a situation like this would be to say "get out" of course but in some circumstances I suspect that it isn't anywhere nearly as easy as that: what if the abusive partner is actively dangerous to their former partner and his/her family and their wellbeing and decides to come after them?
It's a complicated issue for sure, but, like you, I definitely think that this is an extremely negative development rather than a positive one. I think of it in much the same way as CCTV in general and the rise of that particular tool - first it was airports, then supermarkets, then city centres, then town centres, then villages where no crime ever happens, to ANPR, to monitoring people's conversations, to pubs, to pervert operators using it to leer and stalk people… and so on.
Plus I wonder if all the people who get to see the footage will themselves be unsuitable people to see it? If you understand what I mean. Human nature and all that.
It does just seem like a state intrusion with massive expansion capabilities.
You mention men who get abused off women. Did you notice in the post, I never used 'woman' or 'man', just generic terms?
I know alot of men get abused off women but I bet no man would qualify for this scheme. Female on male domestic abuse seems to be kept quiet by the media because it doesn't fit in with the feminist adgenda.
Another point of contention as well: what if the abuser discovers the CCTV equipment and rips it out before he is caught on camera? What then for the victim?
If feminists want equality, I'm all for it. They don't want equality: a lot of them want supremacy.
To answer your question, This was in the article but I didn't print it:
""Police admit there is a risk that the cameras will be damaged by the attacker, but believe when they are already inside the house and ‘intent on causing harm’ many will take no notice. ""
In essence, they are just hoping the white elephant you spotted will not come to play.
And what rooms will this equipment be put in? The hallway? The living room? The kitchen? The bathroom? The bedroom? Expect a lot of sex tapes to be being saved to disk by technicians grossly abusing their power.
There's a hundred ways something like this could be abused. And those are the two most uncreative and obvious ones.
1. set up surveillance
2. separate families any which way
3. take over the role of running people's lives.
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