Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: Notesfiles $Revision: 1.7.0.7 $; site smu Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!uiucdcs!convex!smu!leff From: leff@smu Newsgroups: net.women Subject: Re: Rape (A Solution) Message-ID: <25100003@smu> Date: Mon, 29-Jul-85 04:12:00 EDT Article-I.D.: smu.25100003 Posted: Mon Jul 29 04:12:00 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 31-Jul-85 04:23:42 EDT References: <25100002@smu> Lines: 108 Nf-ID: #R:smu:25100002:smu:25100003:000:5886 Nf-From: smu!leff Jul 29 03:12:00 1985 This is a rebuttal to the various responses to my article on a solution for the Rape Problem. In my article I proposed video cameras on every street corner connected to various monitoring locations. Issue 1: Am I creating a "1984" type environment. I am not proposing video cameras in the home. First of all, they would not be cost effective since at least one would be needed for each household while cameras monitoring the streets would serve many house holds. Second of all, homes can be protected against outside attackers (somebody going through the door or window) by the use of steel grids on windows and metal doors with dead bolts, a much cheaper technology. The video cameras would not go anywhere where a police officer could not go or look without a search warrant. They are already being used on the streets without any legal problems. Video cameras in the home would violate the fourth ammendment (unless they were put there with the consent of one of the occupants). Second of all, the video camera system does not have to be run by the government. It is conceivable that a real estate syndicate might purchase a large amount of real estate in a given neighborhood where prices are greatly depressed due to a high crime rate. They might install and monitor the cameras to make a profit from selling the real estate or renting it out at a higher value than expected. It is possible that some neighborhoods might be left free of the cameras for the benefit of those who find the thought of a camera looking at them more disturbing than the thought of being a crime victim. Other neighborhoods and work areas would be fitted with the video cameras for the benefit of those who feel the opposite. Issue 2: People feel the cameras would be subject to vandalism and theft The original proposal had the video cameras suspended high up (between streetlights for example). Thus they would be no more vulnerable to vandalism than street or traffic lights are today. The bulletproof plexiglass would decrease the vulnerability still further. Furthermore, the system would readily detect vandalism attempts. If a person was attempting to knock down a camera (by climbing up a ladder with a paint can, or by shooting at it), the person monitoring the camera would see some signs of the activity (hearing the gun shot, man on a ladder, or observing a person with a gun) before the camera was down. Once the camera was rendered inoperative, that would certainly be obvious as a blank screen and police would be summoned to the intersection to apprehend any suspects and protect the area until a new one could be installed. Also, the cameras on the adjacent four corners would be used to observe the people fleeing from the scene of the vandalism. (If any type of crime is committed, the system can be used to track where the perpetrators are going so that the police can be given instructions as to where to go to apprehend them.) Issue 3: Many (most) rapes are committed by acquaintances in the home. Although rapes by acquaintances is a major component of the total number of rapes, women fear rapes by strangers much more. Thus eliminating rapes by strangers would remove the "unwritten curfew" that women feel they are under. Furthermore it would be a substantial dent in the total number of rapes. I understand that for some populations of women (e. g. women living in apartments in high crime areas), rape by strangers is much greater than 50 percent of all rapes. Issue 4: Rapes on freways, etc. One of the problems on many freeways is that there is no emergency telephones. Thus a women whose car breaks down has three choices: 1) wait for hours for a police car to come by 2) take a chance on a stranger coming by 3) attempting to walk to a town/phone Also, Central Expressway on Dallas already has cameras installed. They are for the purpose of letting the police know when a car breaks down in the middle of the highway so wreckers/etc. can be gotten there as quickly as possible. We clearly need cameras on freeways (as well as emergency telephones). Maybe they can be used to help track drunk drivers as well to eliminate rapes on stranded motorists. I know a women whose parents would not let her drive at night. They were afraid that her car might break down and she would either be attacked on the road or when she tried to walk to get to a phone. ARRGH! Flame ON! We use much technology that had unfortunate uses in Nazi Germany, e. g. gas ovens, tattoos and imprisonment facilities. It is not the fact that the technology has been used in a poor way in the past, each possible use must be evaluated for its costs/benefits. Why are you people so afraid of a technology, just because it was misused in a FICTIONAL SOCIETY. If video-camera technology is so dangerous, why haven't the Soviet Union and South Africa employed it for repression???!!!! In "1984" the cameras in people's homes were an outgrowth of a two way video network similar in many ways to QUBE, not to cameras installed for a crime control purpose in public areas. It seems that certain Luddites don't believe that the government should see to it that anyone can walk anywhere, dressed any way they feel like (no matter how provocative or how rich-looking) without fear. They would not like to remove the major fear of most urban dwellers, crime! They would prefer crime continue to destroy many neighborhoods resulting in the deterioration of some very fine buildings. They prefer that women be forced to buy an expensive transportation source (the private car) instead of using mass transit or walking because of the fear of crime. They prefer to allow an ever continuing urban sprawl as people flee from the city to the suburbs to avoid crime only to find criminals and slums move to the former suburbs instead of solving the problem!