Focus on crime

A THOUGHT-PROVOKING juxtaposition: on the same day that “violence erupted” at a children’s football match in Glasgow, leading, despite the presence of a police helicopter, to the grand total of three arrests, you report that 400 “super intelligent” CCTV cameras are to be installed in the same city (30 April).

It is depressing that Glasgow Council’s leader should unquestioningly celebrate the fact that “we are generating more data than at any time in history”, and should assert that these cameras will make the city “smarter [whatever that means] and safer”.

If the manufacturers of these cameras are so confident of their benefits, I’m sure they will be happy to make them available without charge for a controlled trial.

With £24 million of public money to be spent on yet more surveillance, most of your readers will be able to come up with more cost-effective ways of reducing crime, such as improving the environments in which people live, and doing something to increase the appallingly low conviction rate for rapists.

Such measures would have another advantage compared to cameras: they would not take us further down the road to 1984.

Andrew Anderson

Granton Road

Edinburgh