Chicago Links School Cameras To Police 156
Farakin brings us a story about how cameras in roughly 200 Chicago schools are being connected to police headquarters and the city's 911 emergency center. The goal of the effort is to "consolidate video surveillance," and it will involve both routine monitoring and real-time updates to officers on their way to a crisis. According the the Chicago Tribune, "The mayor acknowledged the cameras provide only limited security, citing a spate of shootings in recent days that have claimed young victims during after-school hours." The story also contains a video in which Mayor Daley indicated that he expects the cameras to serve as a deterrent now that people know they're under the eye of the police.
Treating the symptoms. (Score:3, Insightful)
priorities (Score:5, Insightful)
Big brother (Score:2, Insightful)
I think the intresting bit is at the end of the st (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the intresting bit is at the end of the story, 50 police officers were to be hired, but budget reasons (cuts?) led to a delay of a full month before they could start training. Meanwhile a program to get cops on the beat and civilians to do the paper work was also delayed, again seemingly because of budget reasons.
Note that it is purely MY speculation that the budget reasons were cuts, but it is hard to imagine how for instance an increase in budget would cause a delay.
There is actually a rather neat trick that you can pull with this. I announce a new plan to hire 50 cops. Nice headline, people feel good about it. Delays are caused and the program is scaled back. Sometime later I announce that 40 cops have been hired. Nice headline, people feel good about it, 90 new cops on the beat... AHA! You spotted it eh?
If I am really good I also silenty get rid of 60 cops and score another headline NOT with the firing but with the budget savings I have been managing. Ain't I good, can you guess how the next election will go?
The problem is simple, you need to follow the news in depth and keep on a story and anything that might relate to it. For instance the increased budget for the DHS from which this camera system is payed, where does that money come from? Could it even be that the reason the budget office did not have the money for civilian office workers and the new cops was because the money went to the DHS instead?
But people hate in depth reporting, note how many people here scream bloody murder when a new development in SCO is reported or shout DUPE when an article is really an update. For many people news is what is happening now, but for a crafty politician that leads to an easy way to pull the wool over everyone's eye.
Predictable (Score:5, Insightful)
Morons. Giving your rights and freedoms away like it was candy.
Re:Treating the symptoms. (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the kinds of people who's careers and businesses are tied police, military, and incarceration programs are very different from the kinds of people who are social workers. Guess which personality types run DHS?
Re:priorities (Score:5, Insightful)
The student himself is a good student, he has no issues, he just said something that is out of line. Yet my brother got yelled at for not reporting him to the office. You know what would've happened to the kid if the other teacher reported it? One stupid statement and one slip up and this kid is sent to the principle, then a counselor is brought in, then psychiatric help, and his parents are called in. For one little slip up the kid is attacked from all angles as the bad guy. Nothing is really solved and the kid learned nothing about what he said, hes just told not to say statements like that anymore.
Back in 1995-96 I was still in grade school, one of my classmates had a pocket knife on her key chain. When our teacher saw it, she told her not to bring it back to school and to remove it. Today if that happens, a school police officer is notified, the kid is detained, and finally expelled from school for a week. So instead of a kid spending a week in class learning, the kid is at home sleeping and watching tv.
The thing is, you cant just hire new teachers. You need to hire competent teachers to teach the children and to shape them into good people. You ask me who has had the most influence in my life and I name my dad and then teachers, coaches, and professors. Not Michael Jordan, or Rappers, or anyone like that, I name people who have directly influenced me.
Teachers (and no, I don't mean all of them) don't look out for the better good of the student anymore, they look out for their own job. And we wonder why the education system is failing.
cameras (Score:5, Insightful)
What once was unthinkable will become commonplace. The first few years, kids will rebel, maybe even take down a camera or two, obscure its picture, that sort of thing. Given enough time, the kids are sufficiently inured to the cameras, and they wont even see them anymore.
Kids that dont notice cameras will grow to be adults that dont notice cameras. Thats the whole point of this exercise. Get em while their young.
Re:Big Brother knows best (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe I'm one of those grumpy people you mentioned...
Close Stable Door After Horses Are Off and Away (Score:4, Insightful)
It's also no deterrent at all. We've seen from the vast majority of shootings that those involved are quite willing to shoot first, and then shoot themselves so that there are no consequences. The notion that cameras are going to be a deterrent is well wide of the mark.
Re:Big Brother knows best (Score:3, Insightful)
And it potentially is. Instead of a small set of local security officers monitoring activity, a much larger set of people, further from the scene, can watch everything. That opens up much more potential abuse and misinterpretations.
Indoctrination (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Security cameras should be outlawed altogether! (Score:-1, Insightful)
Misplaced Blame? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Close Stable Door After Horses Are Off and Away (Score:4, Insightful)
All handguns are effectively banned in Chicago, all weapons are registered with the city, and Cook County laws are not much less strict, same goes for Illinois state law -- Illinois has more restrictions on who may possess firearms than Canada, and all the laws in the world wouldn't have done much to prevent the NIU shooting.
Selling firearms across state lines without going through a Federally licensed dealer is also criminalized, so it's not the fault of adjoining states with less controls. And if availability is the issue, then why wouldn't these incidents be more common in places outside of Chicago, Illinois, a city with laws that go beyond any laws Hillary or Barack would admit to dreaming of for America?
These "weapons that allow them to kill people very easily" have been around for hundreds of years, the real question is what has changed in these kid's heads "that allow them to kill people very easily"?
If another young adult wanted to kill 5 people, he could just as easily bring in a kitchen cleaver or a few mason jars filled with gasoline; every teen has access to these, so there's something besides availability stopping the average teen from mass murder.
Re:Big Brother knows best (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Misplaced Blame? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Calling Captain Obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the callous disregard for human life, stupid!
The Chicago police and video cameras don't prevent crime, they commit [cbs2chicago.com] crime. And then do it again [foxnews.com]. And again [chartsky.com].
Re:Close Stable Door After Horses Are Off and Away (Score:3, Insightful)
we have quite a few subcultures in our country with no regard for human life. we have men spawning children and not raising them. we have stars glamorizing the gangster lifestyle. we have at least half a million illegal immigrants who are also in organized crime.
Re:Big Brother knows best (Score:3, Insightful)
I've heard it said before, and see it already coming true: "What one generation tolerates, the next generation embraces". Kinda scary....pretty soon, no one will still be around that even remembers what it was like to NOT have cameras everywhere, and every move and purchase saved somewhere and potentially tracked.
*SIGH*
No use (Score:3, Insightful)
These cameras will give a false sense of security to some, and total useless to victims other than to maybe prove something after the fact. "Ya he got the S*** beat out of him for sure" or "ya he got stabbed, and we cant tell who it is in that hoodie" There is no replacement for having security where its needed, and not where its not.
Re:False Alarms (Score:3, Insightful)
School systems suck for the kids in them, especially public...ESPECIALLY PUBLIC...(especially Chicago)
A modified old saying... (Score:3, Insightful)