BRITAIN is one of the most watched societies in the world and an increasingly fearful country. There is a link here but politicians continue to ignore it, claiming that more security and more CCTV can only make us feel safer.
The fact that it doesn't is reflected by today's soaring fear of crime, which is one of the biggest problems facing the Government, with the vast majority believing that crime is going up although it has been going down steadily since 1995. Crime fig
ures are notoriously complex but there is agreement across the political spectrum that overall crime is down and that it is the perception that it is rising when it isn't that is the problem. It's a paradox which the police call "the success gap".
When Jack Straw was Home Secretary he said that "fear of crime" was a contemporary "evil" on a par with the "five (giant] evils" of want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness which Beveridge vowed to tackle after the Second World War. As a result he announced a drive to build a safer society, based on the biggest ever investment in CCTV and the introduction of antisocial behaviour orders.
Nearly ten years later, when the Joseph Rowntree Foundation launched its own consultation into modern "social evils", fear and distrust emerged as one of the most disturbing trends. This is despite the installation of 4.2 million CCTV cameras – more than in the whole of Europe put together – and the roll-out of the antisocial behaviour and "Respect" agendas, underpinned by the need to reassure people and make them feel safer.
Rather than making people feel safer it is these policies, alongside the emergence of a new "architecture of fear", which are part of the problem rather than the solution, making the situation worse rather than better and increasing fear and distrust between people.
According to research published by the Scottish Office, the huge rise in CCTV not only fails to reassure people but may actually be responsible for increasing crime as well, by damaging the social fabric. The research, carried out in Glasgow, before and after the introduction of cameras in a particular location, found that although the public had welcomed the introduction of CCTV, believing it would make them feel safer, there was no improvement in feelings of safety after it was installed and crime, in fact, went up in the area studied.
The report concluded "the electronic eye on the street" undermines the "natural surveillance" of individuals by each other and represents a significant retreat from "collective and individual responsibility to self interest and a culture of fear".
CCTV is only the tip of the iceberg, with the "electronic eye on the street" soon to be joined by the "electronic eye in the sky". These are known as Drones or UAVs – the unmanned spy planes used in Iraq – and they have already been commissioned by Merseyside Police. They are widely expected to be used in London for the 2012 Olympics and security experts predict they will remain in place after that, subtly becoming, like CCTV itself, an accepted part of the landscape.
Then there's the "Mosquito", a security device which produces a high pitched whine at a certain frequency which makes young people feel unwell because they have more sensitive hearing than adults. It was condemned by a UN report last week which said that, like measures targeting antisocial behaviour, it may "violate the rights of children to freedom of movement and peaceful assembly". But despite widespread criticism it has proved so popular, with demand for the device far outstripping supply, that the UK firm behind it has joined forces with an American security company.
Alongside the state-of-the-art security technology of drones and Mosquitoes, concerns about security determine the look and feel of nearly all new development, based on an approach to design called "secured by design". In town and city centres all around the country new privately owned and privately controlled shopping, office and leisure complexes, in the style of London's finance district Canary Wharf, are policed by private security. All new housing is also built according to this model, with high security enclaves replacing traditional streets. Although many are built as gated communities, they're not all actually gated but they may as well be, given the disconnected effect they have on the surrounding environment.
Although the causes of fear and distrust are complex, the evidence shows inequality is at the root of the problem, reflected by the low levels of fear and high levels of trust in Scandinavian societies. But it is not so much income inequalities as the visible physical impact of segregation, which is emphasised by the current obsession with security, which is behind the culture of fear. Although these security-based policies, from CCTV to secured by design, are there to make us feel safer they are doing exactly the opposite.
• Writer and journalist Anna Minton is the author of a Joseph Rowntree Foundation social evils Viewpoint on fear and distrust to be published October 9 at www.jrf.org.uk. Her forthcoming book Ground Control will be published by Penguin in 2009.The full article contains 866 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
