Revise - 2

We need you, video cameras!

“Oh my god, where is my money?” “Hey, who broke the board in the classroom?” I heard this kind of voice many times and the school has no solution to solve the problems for a long time. Finally, after the spring break, I saw tons of video cameras appeared in the public areas of the campus. Even though some of my schoolmates complained about losing of privacy, I totally agree of having video cameras in public areas, including dorms and hallways, to promote students’ personal property, to decrease crime and to protect students.

First of all, those video cameras can definitely protect students’ personal property. I’m a great example to support my position. Maybe it’s because of my forgetting of locking the door; maybe it’s because of the circumspection of the thief. Before the spring break, I’m a sufferer that I lost 500 hundred dollars and my credit card when I left my room during school time. However, there’s no video camera or other devices that can tell me who the thief was. Even though I could make sure that somebody stole them, I could not prove the truth. I felt disappointed and had nothing to do. Lastly, I got the payment information of my credit card and called the police. Then, the police found who the thief is from the video camera of Stop and Shop. It was a long-term process, which took 3 weeks. However, if there were some video cameras in the dorm, it wouldn’t cost that much time to find the thief. Meanwhile, I was so lucky that the person stole my credit card with the money, or I could never find any information about her. As the result, it’s important to promote my property by having video cameras.

On the other hand, it can eliminate the occurring of crime. When there’s no video camera, there’s no self-discipline in people’s mind since nobody would find it out. When there are video cameras, people would tell them selves there’s something that’s looking at them. Then, the percentage of crimes would decrease. In Paris, for example, the Metro has installed 2,500 video cameras on municipal buses to identify criminal acts as they occur. The cameras caught 83% of crimes and petty crime has declined as a result. In Liverpool, the using of video camera eliminated 25 percent of crime. (Nieto) It proved the decreasing of crime occurring percentage after other places installed video cameras. Compare it with the condition of Cheshire Academy, the percentage of petty crime, such as steal, might decrease as well. Thus, those data proves that the using of video cameras is important to control the number of crimes.

Otherwise, the video cameras can be use to protect students from accidents. People would say it’s safe enough at school, but accidents are always occurring in normal places. It’s sure that nothing is absolute; teachers cannot avoid accidents completely, so those video cameras are needed. If students are fighting with each other, the teachers can know immediately. If a student let somebody even he or she’s not familiar with get into the dorm, the teachers would know at the first time. Even if some event happened already, the police can quickly understand what happened from the video camera. For instance, there was a accident happened last semester. I was in my algebra class, and a teacher came to tell us to turn the light off. The students in the classroom were confused and intense. Nobody has told us what happened that time. Later, I finally know that it might because of a guy got into our building and hidden in the building. If there was a video camera, the school can notice this problem soon, and that position even wouldn’t happen. Thus, those video cameras are the best thing to make students stay safe.

Admittedly, it’s true that some opponents would think having those video cameras is an invasion of their privacy. However, ones’ safety and property is much more important than ones’ privacy. Otherwise, the cameras are only in public areas that they still have their privacy in their room. Then, some opponents would say they could just lock the door to keep their property and safety. Nevertheless, as what I just said, the video cameras are things to avoid accident. An accident’s occurring might make people lost more than just a little bit privacy. To conclude, I’m looking forward the life with video cameras. Feeling free to leave the door open when people leave the room; trusting each other better because of the restraint of video cameras; and relying better on the school’s policy system. How wonderful the life will be with video cameras!

Citation:

Nieto, Marcus. "Public Video Surveillance: Is It An Effective Crime Prevention Tool?" Public Video Surveillance: Is It An Effective Crime Prevention Tool? California Research Bureau, California State Library, n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2015.