“Oh my god, where is my money?” “Hey, who
broke the board in the classroom?” I have heard this kind of voice many times since I had come to Cheshire Academy and
the school had no solution to solve the problems for a long time. Students started
feeling disappointed to our school’s precautions for accidents’ appearing. 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 was no video cameras or other devices that can
tell me who the thief was. Although 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 was 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, the video
cameras can be some nice helpers to promote our personal property.
On the other hand, the video cameras can eliminate
the occurring of crime, which contributed a lot to the world police system. 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 that the laws are bind around them, so they must constraints by their owns. 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) The examples showed the percentage changes of other places after they use video cameras. The information can prove that it's efficient enough to decrease crimes. Compare it with the condition of Cheshire Academy, the percentage of
petty crime, such as steal, might decrease as well. Thus, the data proves that
controlling the number of crimes’ occurring seemed too easy for video cameras
to achieve.
Otherwise, another use of the video cameras
is protecting students from accidents. People would say it is safe enough at school,
but accidents always occurr in normal places. It is sure that nothing is
absolute; teachers cannot avoid accidents completely, so it's the reason why video cameras
are needed. If students are fighting with each other, the teachers will know
immediately. If a student let some stranger, which even he or she doesn't familiar with, get
into the dorm, the teachers would know at the first time. Even if some events has happened already, the police would quickly understand what happened from the
video camera. For instance, there was an accident happened last semester. I was
in my algebra class for taking my algebra quiz, 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 would not happen. Thus,
the life with video cameras seemed safety and relaxing.
Admittedly, it is 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 accidents. An accident’s occurring might make
people lost more than just a little bit privacy. To conclude, I’m looking
forward to 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 police 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.
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