ESSAY ESSENTIAL COMPONENTS
Topic: CCTV cameras, surveillance and the politics of exclusion.
Further inclusions: This theoretical essay is to explore the crime prevention theories which underpin CCTV cameras and surveillance.
The focus of this criminology essay is crime prevention and the role of CCTV.
The argument of the paper will be that the deployment of open-street CCTV cameras in public spaces both change the relationship through which participants engage with a public space and exclude populations through a selective gaze.
The dominant sections of this paper should be:
- Introduction which should signpost the sections of the paper
- How CCTV cameras change how participants interact with a public space
- The politics of a selective gaze and how CCTV excludes populations
- How CCTV can be improved
- Conclusion which should briefly summarize key points and provide insight into how facial-recognition technology may either complicate or alleviate the issues raised within the paper.
INTERACTING WITH SPACE
- The deployment of CCTV cameras changes the relationship through which people engage with public spaces – this section should explore the anxieties people feel at the sight of a camera. This section is a theoretical exploration of does it mean to be watched and who is doing the watching.
- The second portion of this section should be an analytical exercise following on from ‘who is doing the watching’. There should be a comparison of the deployment of open-street cameras in australia and privately owned cameras.
- What does it mean to be seen by a privately owned camera walking through a residential area vs being seen by a camera situated within a public network?
- This section should drawn on Foucauldian theories of disciplinary power and how CCTV cameras are a crime prevention initiative that control people without physical force.
THE POLTICS OF A SELECTIVE GAZE
- This section will mostly draw on theory to explore who is being excluded by the gaze of CCTV’s; how this is being done; what the potential displacement effects are and whether displacement is an intended or unintended consequence
- This section should be of predominant focus and the largest section of the paper.
RECOMMENDATIONS
- Draw on contemporary surveillance and criminological research to provide insight into how CCTV cameras can be improved. Reflect on the deployment of seven CCTV cameras along an entertainment precinct in St Kilda Victoria and whether CCTV is most effective means of addressing anti-social behaviour
CONCLUSION
- Should briefly summarise key points and provide insight into how facial-recognition technology may either complicate or alleviate the issues raised within the paper.
Theories that must be referenced:
- Agamben’s theorization of ‘Bare life’ and the homo sacar. This theory should be applied and explain those that the selective gaze applies too.
- Foucault’s theorization of disciplinary power and biopower – how power is deployed by the CCTV and how it can be conceptualized as a contemporary urban panopticon
- The politics of a selective gaze as theorised by Williams and Johnstone (2000).
The politics of a selective gaze can be conceptualised as:
Williams and Johnson (2000: 183) referred to ‘the politics of the selective gaze’ and they saw CCTV as helping to ‘create and enforce socio-spatial divisions within and between towns and amongst those that use the open streets of the surveilled places’. CCTV cameras can facilitate the exclusion of certain groups from public spaces that lead to it being used as a ‘tool designed to ensure continued economic vitality of urban spaces’ (Williams and Johnson, 2000: 194). The research has suggested some surveillance systems being used for ‘policing profit’ not safety (Smith, 1998) and the pressures of managing the ‘entrepreneurial city’ means classifying people according to their economic purchasing power leading to the possibility of surveillance being used as a ‘tool of social exclusion
https://www.le.ac.uk/oerresources/criminology/msc/unit8/page_15.htm
- Roberto Esposito’s theorization of ‘immunitas’ and auto-immune responses. This theory indicates that crime prevention initiatives reflect a community wanting to immunise itself from a particular social disorder. Please use this theory and adapt it further to explore the idea of an ‘auto-immune’ this is the idea that a crime prevention control becomes automated to such an extent that populations become excluded by default. This theory and the ‘politics of a selective gaze’ should be dominant theories and themes of the paper.
ESSAY REQUIREMENTS;
For this assignment you are required to develop the topic chosen for the first piece of assessment. The essay can be a think-piece or a practical report. The second piece of assessment will deepen and expand the work done in the first piece of assessment.
The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate in depth understanding and application of the course materials and to write lucidly about the complexities of crime prevention in one or more of its historical, conceptual, practical, political and cultural domains.
In the second piece of assessment the student is expected to develop the critical insights from the first piece of assessment into a design, application or intervention that reflects the critical work already undertaken.
You ill also be marked on the following criteria:
- Is the argument structured in a logical and well organised manner?
- Has the topic been addressed effectively?
- Does the conclusion coherently summarize the main points of the essay?
- Is the writing style clear and comprehensible?
- Spelling, grammar and referencing
Essays should be based on material covered in lectures, readings and tutorials and wider research in academic publications and other credible sources.
