New labour and new surveillance: Theoretical and political ramifications of CCTV implementation in the UK

This paper examines the implications of New Labour's approaches to crime and disorder on CCTV implementation. It concentrates on the usage of CCTV as one of the government's many initiatives, which are intended to address crime and disorder, including the fear of crime. In particular, the impact of the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act (CDA) - the cornerstone of this government's approach to crime reduction - on the generation of such strategies is examined. The paper revisits neo-Marxist and Foucauldian analyses of the so-called surveillance society through an appraisal of the complex relationship between structure and agency in the formulation and implementation of anti-crime and disorder strategies. Drawing on fieldwork data the paper considers the activities of practitioners at a local level by focusing on the influence of central government, local communities and 'common sense' thinking based on certain criminological theories. It is argued that a myriad of micro-level operations, obligations, processes, managerial concerns (particularly conflict resolution and resource issues), structures and agency - as well as the indirect influence of central government - shape CCTV policy. Ultimately, the creation of new local policy contexts under the CDA emphasise the need to consider incremental and malleable processes concerning the formulation of CCTV policy. In turn, this allows a re-examination of theoretical accounts of surveillance, and their attendant assumptions of sovereign or disciplinary power

An interrupted transmission? Processes of CCTV implementation and the impact of human agency

This paper examines the processes that bring about the creation of new public-space CCTV schemes. Through an appraisal of the grounded activities of the practitioners who make decisions over CCTV, the role of agency is identified as a particularly strong, yet relatively neglected, influence on its implementation. Moreover, beyond dichotomised notions of central structures and local agency, an understanding is developed of the complex interaction between the individual actors involved in CCTV dissemination and the political context in which they operate. In doing so, public policy is identified as the vehicle through which camera surveillance systems become installed and disseminated throughout public space. Moreover, these various forces of structure and agency become filtered through identifiable networks of policy-makers, comprising 'responsibilised' actors who oversee the deployment of CCTV. This analysis is used to revisit a range of administrative and theoretical understandings of surveillance, including: citations of CCTV as an evaluated response to crime; the attribution of power- and interest-based agendas to its implementation; and accounts which locate CCTV expansion within various evolving societal processes. Drawing on qualitative fieldwork data gathered during doctoral research, the paper considers the activities of practitioners at a local level and identifies crucial contexts, drivers and negotiations on which expanding surveillance is contingent. Ultimately, it is argued that the process of CCTV installation ? from conception to material implementation ? is disrupted and mediated by a range of micro-level operations, obligations, processes, managerial concerns (particularly conflict resolution and resource issues), structures and agency, and the indirect influence of central government. These not only arbitrate over whether the CCTV becomes installed, but also generate a range of additional uses for the cameras, many of which are performed before they are even switched on. This emphasises the need to consider the processes that enable and constrain the actions of those making decisions over CCTV and demonstrates how no single interest becomes solely participant in the deployment of surveillance. Finally, because of the centrality and contingency of both human agency and the structural contexts in which it operates in determining the installation of CCTV, questions arise concerning the importance of integrative sociological theories in understanding the deployment of surveillance

Olympic rings of steel: Constructing security for 2012 and beyond

Academic and political commentators have commonly sought to understand the Olympics as a cultural dynamic, a "spectacle" that motivates certain actors to project their relative interests in localized spaces and as well on a global scale (Hiller 2006; Boyle and Haggerty 2009b ). Mega-events, as this argument goes, are monumental cultural events (Roche 2000) that rely on the audacity of spectacle to dramatize and condition the cultural, political, legal and economic landscape. Extending these insights into surveillance studies, Boyle and Haggerty (2009b: 259-260) position spectacle and the disciplinary mechanisms of anxieties associated with mega-events to explain the risk management practices of security planners. The dynamic social implications of the spectacle condition dramatic regimes of securitization and surveillance such that sovereign power emanates from the production and consumption of spectacle. In similar fashion Vida Bajc (2007: 1648) writes that security meta-rituals "demonstrate[s] that the process of transformation of [the] public space [of mega-events] from one of routine of daily life into a sterile area [that] has a ritual form [that] .... separates insiders from outsiders and brings about a new socio-political reality." Put another way, the "security-meta ritual" legitimates security and surveillance practices by normalizing the social hierarchies it imposes. Bajc focuses on the over-determination of dividing practices in mega-event security, but the signifying practices associated with capital are absent (perhaps due to her empirical focus on presidential addresses). Klauser (2008: 181) links commercialization and mechanisms of surveillance, but only by foregrounding the significance of "neutralized space" created by granting absolute commercial rights to event sponsors. Neoliberalprivatization and its articulation with security and surveillance, however, cannot be reduced to control over sponsorship rights and consumptive practices in particular urban "zones," nor can it be limited by the methodological temporality of the event itself

Resilient planning for sporting mega-events: designing and managing safe and secure urban places for London 2012 and beyond

Since the 1960s both regeneration and security have been prominent themes in Olympic planning. However, this paper argues that the prominence given to post event 'legacies' in London's bid to host the 2012 Summer Games has fomented a merger of these hitherto distinct ambitions oriented around notions of 'resilience'. In addition to identifying this merger, based on analysis of planning for the 2012 Games the paper sets out its component features and considers a range of key implications. These include the accommodation of Olympic security amid shifting national security arrangements and, at a local level, the impact and importance of the 2011 London riots on Olympic safety and security processes. Organised over four areas of discussion - the first three comprising of the coupling of spatial strategies of resilient planning and design with concerns for security; the temporal framework of such approaches; analysis of the altered physical and institutional landscape of London ahead of the 2012 Olympic Games - the paper concludes by identifying and discussing the ways in which urban rejuvenation and securitisation which are increasingly being combined into resilient designs and master plans in the Olympic context and, crucially, standardised, exported and transferred to new urban hosts of similar events

Implications of transforming climate change risks into security risks

Purpose A number of severe weather events have influenced a shift in UK policy concerning how climate-induced hazards are managed. Whist this shift has encouraged improvements in emergency management and preparedness, the risk of climate change is increasingly becoming securitised within policy discourses, and enmeshed with broader agendas traditionally associated with human-induced threats. Climate change is seen as a security risk because it can impede development of a nation. The purpose of this paper is to explore the evolution of the securitisation of climate change, and interrogates how such framings influence a range of conceptual and policy focused approaches towards both security and climate change. Design/methodology/approach Drawing upon the UK context, the paper uses a novel methodological approach combining critical discourse analysis and focus groups with security experts and policymakers. Findings The resulting policy landscape appears inexorably skewed towards short-term decision cycles that do little to mitigate longer-term threats to the nation?s assets. Whilst a prominent political action on a global level is required in order to mitigate the root causes (i.e. GHG emissions), national level efforts focus on adaptation (preparedness to the impacts of climate-induced hazards), and are forming part of the security agenda. Originality/value These issues are not restricted to the UK: understanding the role of security and its relationship to climate change becomes more pressing and urgent, as it informs the consequences of securitising climate change risks for development-disaster risk system

Constructing resilience through security and surveillance: The politics, practices and tensions of security-driven resilience

This article illuminates how, since 9/11, security policy has gradually become more central to a range of resilience discourses and practices. As this process draws a wider range of security infrastructures, organizations and approaches into the enactment of resilience, security practices are enabled through more palatable and legitimizing discourses of resilience. This article charts the emergence and proliferation of security-driven resilience logics, deployed at different spatial scales, which exist in tension with each other. We exemplify such tensions in practice through a detailed case study from Birmingham, UK: ‘Project Champion’ an attempt to install over 200 high-resolution surveillance cameras, often invisibly, around neighbourhoods with a predominantly Muslim population. Here, practices of security-driven resilience came into conflict with other policy priorities focused upon community-centred social cohesion, posing a series of questions about social control, surveillance and the ability of national agencies to construct community resilience in local areas amidst state attempts to label the same spaces as ‘dangerous’. It is argued that security-driven logics of resilience generate conflicts in how resilience is operationalized, and produce and reproduce new hierarchical arrangements which, in turn, may work to subvert some of the founding aspirations and principles of resilience logic itself

Art as a Means to Disrupt Routine Use of Space

This paper examines the publicly visible aspects of counter-terrorism activity in pedestrian spaces as mechanisms of disruption. We discuss the objectives of counter-terrorism in terms of disruption of routine for both hostile actors and general users of public spaces, categorising the desired effects as 1) triangulation of attention; 2) creation of unexpected performance; and 3) choreographing of crowd flow. We review the potential effects of these existing forms of disruption used in counter-terrorism. We then present a palette of art, advertising, architecture, and entertainment projects that offer examples of the same disruption effects of triangulation, performance and flow. We conclude by reviewing the existing support for public art in counter-terrorism policy, and build on the argument for art as an important alternative to authority. We suggest that while advocates of authority-based disruption might regard the playfulness of some art as a weakness, the unexpectedness it offers is perhaps a key strengt

'This is not America': Cultural mythscapes, media representation and the anatomy of the Surveillance School in Australia

Schools have exhibited a demonstrable predilection for surveillance technologies in recent years. While much attention has been paid to the globalized diffusion of surveillance and security practices, in contrast, the ways in which artefacts of surveillance surface and take root unevenly internationally has not received much scholarly attention. Drawing on the media representation of emergent school surveillance technologies in Australia, this article seeks to illuminate how distinctive cultural dynamics interact with acceptability, reverence and rejection of surveillance apparatus in the educational context. Far from revealing homogeneity in the manifestation of surveillance practices, the findings show that cultural context and specificity are central to understanding the materiality of surveillance apparatus and regimes

The ‘uberization of policing’? How police negotiate and operationalise predictive policing technology

Predictive policing generally refers to police work that utilises strategies, algorithmic technologies, and big data to generate near-future predictions about the people and places deemed likely to be involved in or experience crime. Claimed benefits of predictive policing centre on the technology’s ability to enable pre-emptive police work by automating police decisions. The goal is that officers will rely on computer software and smartphone applications to instruct them about where and who to police just as Uber drivers rely on similar technologies to instruct them about where to pick up passengers. Unfortunately, little is known about the experiences of the in-field users of predictive technologies. This article helps fill this gap by addressing the under researched area of how police officers engage with predictive technologies. As such, data is presented that outlines the findings of a qualitative study with UK police organisations involved in designing and trialing predictive policing software. Research findings show that many police officers have a detailed awareness of the limitations of predictive technologies, specifically those brought about by errors and biases in input data. This awareness has led many officers to develop a sceptical attitude towards predictive technologies and, in a few cases, these officers have expressed a reluctance to use predictive technologies. Based on these findings, this paper argues that claims about predictive software’s ability to neutralise the subjectivity of police work overlooks the ongoing struggles of the police officer to assert their agency and mediate the extent to which predictions will be trusted and utilised