Richard's Kingdom

Last year I wrote about the ineffectiveness of mass CCTV surveillance and suggested that we should fix the broken way in which CCTV is used in the UK. Now a report funded by the Home Office has reached the same conclusion. It turns out that CCTV has almost no impact on crime. Except in car [...]

I’m disgusted by the Government’s new DNA database proposals being laid out as a “consultation” today. Jacqui Smith’s transparent attempts at spin are risible. So is any claim by this Government that it values freedom, civil liberties or the presumption of innocence. SIX TO TWELVE YEARS. That’s the length of time Smith wants to keep [...]

The British Parliament must not extend the practice of internment. In the UK you can already be detained without charge or trial for 28 days if you are accused of terrorism, acts preparatory to terrorism, possessing material for a terrorist purpose, being a member of a terrorist organisation, funding terrorism, attending a terror training camp, [...]

During the recent local Government elections, the Liberal Democrat candidates for my area campaigned in part on a ticket of installing more CCTV cameras. They didn’t really explain the benefits or trade-offs for the community, but they did claim the proposal was part of their strategy to tackle crime and anti-social behaviour. I emailed them [...]

If you live in the UK you’ll be aware of the pervasiveness of Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) systems, which apparently film the average Brit hundreds of times per day (although there are no reliable figures). It turns out this is a pointless exercise. CCTV is rubbish at preventing crime, uneconomical at detecting it, useless at helping [...]