NCJ Number
218870
Journal
European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research Volume: 13 Issue: 1-2 Dated: 2007 Pages: 139-158
Date Published
2007
Length
20 pages
Annotation
This article analyzes the role of surveillance in British criminal justice policy.
Abstract
The main argument is the United Kingdom is experiencing both intensification and a division of surveillance practices in the country. The author illustrates how the primary response of British criminal justice policy to various threats, such as anxieties over sex offenders and the failures of social services in protecting children at risk, has been to increase the surveillance capacity of the state. Surveillance capacity has also been increased as part of a general project to modernize the criminal justice system. The author notes that although surveillance capacity has increased as technology has improved, traditional criminological and criminal justice vestiges remain to designate the “hard core” and persistent offenders who may then be subjected to the full capacity of surveillance techniques, which the author argues are proactive, extensive, and intrusive. At the same time this increased surveillance model has permeated the British criminal justice system, increased surveillance has also crept into the lives of ordinary British citizens through the use of CCTV systems that are used to monitor certain areas and are generally used as a crime prevention method. Indeed, the British Government expanded the use of CCTVs to an estimated 4.2 million cameras that now surveil public and semi-public places. The country has also experienced a growth in what is known as “soft surveillance,” which is primarily personal data collection undertaken by private businesses usually with consumer cooperation. References