Police surveillance and the emergence of CCTV in the 1960s

Crime Prevention and Community Safety

Volumn 5, Issue 3, 2003, Pages 27-37

  Williams, Chris A ^a  

^a OPEN UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

CCTV history; CCTV theory; control room; crowd control; demonstrations; Hugh Trenchard; Liverpool Police; Metropolitan Police; modernity; police; public disorder; public order; technocracy

Indexed keywords

EID: 60949741467     PISSN: 14603780     EISSN: 17434629     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1057/palgrave.cpcs.8140153     Document Type: Article

References (79)

1. Chris Williams has published work on: the history of policing in the UK; police reform and nineteenth century urban history; the analysis and deployment of criminal statistics; and the decline in the autonomy of urban police forces in the twentieth century.
2. His current research concerns the policing of violence in the UK after 1945, the growth of compensation for criminal injuries, and the nature and extent of links between colonial and 'home' police in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
3. He can be contacted at Arts Faculty, Open University, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, chris.williams@open.ac.uk.
4. This paper grew out of an interdisciplinary panel at Essex University on the 'History of State Surveillance and Information Gathering'.
5. Thanks are due to Clive Emsley, Eddy Higgs, Joe Sim, Francis Dodsworth, Phil Agre, Martin Gill, an anonymous referee, and the staffs at Hull University Archive, the Public Record Office and the British Library.
6. The Glasgow Mechanics Magazine, no. xxxii, as quoted in Jennings, H. (ed.) (1985) Pandemonium 1660-1886: The Coming of the Machine as Seen by Contemporary Observers. London: Deutsch, p 164.
7. Lyon, D. (2002) Surveillance Studies: Understanding Visibility, Mobility and the Phenetic Fix, Surveillance and Society, Vol. 1, No. 1, p 4.
8. For a brief introduction to the wider theoretical ramifications of the 'surveillance society', see the section 'Visions of Surveillance' in Norris, C. and Armstrong, G. (1999) The Maximum Surveillance Society: The Rise of CCTV. Oxford: Berg, pp 3-10.
9. A more dynamic approach to the definition of surveillance and its ostensibly 'new' developments can be found in Marx, G. (2002) What's New About the 'New Surveillance'? Classifying Change and Continuity, Surveillance and Society, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp 9-29.
10. See, for example, Moran, J. (1998) A Brief Chronology of Photographic and Video Surveillance, in Norris, C, Moran, J. and Armstrong, G. (eds), Surveillance, Closed Circuit Television and Social Control.Aldershot: Ashgate, pp 277-87, at p 280
11. which credits Bournemouth with the UK's first public CCTV system in 1985; Davies, S. (1996) Big Brother. London: Pan, p 186, dates it to 1985 and the explosion of CCTV in football grounds financed by the Football Trust.
12. Manwaring-White, S. (1983) The Policing Revolution: Police Technology, Democracy and Liberty in Britain. Brighton: Harvester, pp 70-1, at p 51.
13. Hesse, L. (2002) The Transition from Video Motion Detection to Intelligent Scene Discrimination and Target Tracking in Automated Video Surveillance Systems, Security Journal, Vol. 15, No. 2, pp 69-78, at p 78.
14. Norris and Armstrong, op. cit., pp 51-2.
15. Emsley, C. (1996) The English Police: A Political and Social History. London: Longman, pp 224-5.
16. For a discussion on how this relates to the wider concept of surveillance, see inter alia Neocleous, M. (2000) The Fabrication of Social Order: A Critical Theory of Police Power. London: Pluto Press, pp 49-51.
17. Regulations for the day patrol and watchmen of the Edinburgh police establishment (1838). Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, p 5; The New Police Instructions, The Times, 25 September 1829.
18. Weiner, M.J. (1990) Reconstructing the Criminal: Culture, Law and Policy in England 1830-1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp 101, 148, 149.
19. Public Record Office (PRO), Home Office (HO) 45/5734, 'Police surveillance of liberated prisoners in France' (1854).
20. PRO Prison Commission (PCOM) 7/276, 'Habitual Criminals Registry: removal from Home Office to Metropolitan Police Office' (1895-1896).
21. Ireland, R.W. (2002) The Felon and the Angel Copier: Criminal Identity and the Promise of Photography in Victorian England and Wales, in Knafla, L. (ed.), Policing and War in Europe. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, pp 53-86, p 77.
22. See also Sekula, A. (1986) The Body and the Archive, October, 39, pp 3-64.
23. Scott, H. (1954) Scotland Yard. London: André Deutsch, pp 130, 136.
24. Miller, W. (1984) Police Authority in London and New York City 1830-1870, in Emsley, C. (ed.), Essays in Comparative History: Economy, Politics and Society in Britain and America 1850-1920. Milton Keynes: Open University Press, pp 209-25, p 213.
25. Emsley, C. (1993) 'Mother, what did policeman do when there weren't any motors?' The Law, the Police and the Regulation of Motor Traffic in England 1900-1939, Historical Journal, Vol. 36, No. 2, pp 357-81;
26. Weinberger, B. (1995) The Best Police in the World: An Oral History of English Policing from the 1930s to the 1960s. Aldershot: Scolar.
27. Constant, E. (1987) The Social Locus of Technological Practice: Community, System or Organisation?, in Bijker, W.E., Hughes, T.P. and Pinch, T.J. (eds), The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp 223-42, at p 228.
28. The social construction of technology (SCOT) approach is summed up by Graham, S. and Marvin, S. (1996) Telecommunications and the City: Electronic Spaces, Urban Places. London: Routledge, pp 104-7.
29. PRO Metropolitan Police (MEPO) 2/2507, 'Palestine police and wireless', Letter of Metropolitan Police secretary in answer to Palestine Police query, 16 December 1938; MEPO 2/5368, 'Staff required for Operation, Map, and Information Rooms', Commissioner to Home Office, 11 May 1934.
30. MEPO 2/5368, Commissioner to Home Office, 27 January 1936.
31. MEPO 2/5368, Minute from Chief Inspector, D.1 branch, 23 February 1935.
32. Ashmore, E. (1927) Anti-Aircraft Defence, Royal United Service Institution Journal, Vol. 72, p 10;
33. Smith, M. (1984) British Air Strategy Between the Wars. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp 73, 190;
34. Terraine, J. (1982) White Heat: The New Warfare 1914-18. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, pp 270-1.
35. MEPO 2/5368, Memo to Supt, Communications Dept, 17 June 1936.
36. MEPO 2/5368, Minute from Commissioner Trenchard, 1 February 1935.
37. Marx, op. cit., p 23.
38. Ericson, R.V. and Haggerty, D. (1997) Policing the Risk Society. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp 389-90.
39. MEPO 2/8007, Suggested use of television for police purposes, 6 November 1947.
40. MEPO 2/9956, Use of closed-circuit television by police for traffic control and crime detection 1960-1969, 'Closed-Circuit Television' report to Research and Planning Branch, 16 March 1965.
41. Rawlings, P. (2002) Policing: A Short History. Cullompton: Willan, pp 199-200;
42. Critchley, T.A. (1967) A History of Police in England and Wales: 1900-1966. London: Constable, pp 255-6.
43. MEPO 2/9956, Notes of a meeting held to discuss use of closed-circuit television, contribution by Detective Superintendent Cudmore, 12 January 1961.
44. Police Equipment Exhibition, Police Review, LXVIII, 3514, 20 May 1960, p 394.
45. Zworykin, V. (1958) Television in Science and Industry. London: Chapman & Hall, pp 190-3, 249-51.
46. MEPO 2/9956, Police Equipment Exhibition 1960, extract from report submitted by Superintendent Preece, V Division.
47. MEPO 2/9956, Minute of 16 August 1960.
48. MEPO 2/9956, Minute from Assistant Commissioner Douglas Webb, 16 August 1960.
49. MEPO 2/9956, Notes of a meeting held to discuss use of closed-circuit television, contribution of Detective Superintendent Gale, 12 January 1961.
50. HO 377/15, Report on a visit to Liverpool City Police Force 18-20 January 1965; HO 377/16, Supplementary Report on the Experimental Use of Television Camera and Commando Police Patrolling by Liverpool City Police (February 1966); Third Eye on Patrol, The Times, 14 November 1964.
51. Balmer, H. (1965) Cameras and Commandos Halve Liverpool's Crime, Security Gazette, February.
52. HO 377/15, p 2.
53. Experimental Detection by TV in the Dark, The Times, 17 February 1965; HO 377/15; HO 377/16.
54. HO 377/15, p 6.
55. HO 287/1498, Use of closed circuit television by police: national survey 1969, p 24.
56. MEPO 2/9956, Closed circuit television experiment in Hatton Garden, Report of Detective Inspector Thompson.
57. MEPO 2/9956, Report to Deputy Commander, Research and Planning, 11 October 1965.
58. MEPO 2/9956, Minute of 10 February 1966.
59. MEPO 2/2507, Letter of Metropolitan Police secretary in answer to Palestine Police query, 16 December 1938.
60. TV in Watch for Rail Vandals, The Times, 25 June 1965.
61. MEPO 2/956, Letter from Home Office to Commissioner, 19 December 1966.
62. TV cameras help London fight against crime, The Times, 4 January 1968.
63. MEPO 2/9956, Memo from Commander 'A' (Operations), 1 August 1968.
64. Ericson and Haggerty, op. cit., p 35.
65. MEPO 2/9956, Report from A8 Branch, 30 October 1968.
66. National Council for Civil Liberties Archive, University of Hull, DCL 459/8, Letter from T. Smythe to J. Callaghan, 27 October 1968.
67. Waddington, P.A.J. (1993) Dying in a Ditch: The Use of Police Powers in Public Order, International Journal of the Sociology of Law, Vol. 21, pp 335-53, at p 342.
68. HO 287/1498, 33b, p 7.
69. Big Brother Is Watching You, The Times, 31 June 1973, p 14.
70. This claim has been interpreted by Fay as an example of the 'mutability' of CCTV systems. In fact, as the record demonstrates, these cameras were primarily intended for crowd control. Fay, S. (1998) Tough on Crime, Tough on Civil Liberties: Some Negative Aspects of Britain's Wholesale Adoption of CCTV
71. Surveillance during the 1990s, International Review of Law, Computers and Technology, Vol. 12, No. 2, pp 315-46, at p 325.
72. HO 287/1498.
73. Constant, op. cit., p 230.
74. Graham and Marvin, op. cit., pp 94-101.
75. Coleman, R. and Sim, J. (2000) 'You'll never walk alone': CCTV Surveillance, Order and Neo-liberal Rule in Liverpool City Centre, British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 51, No. 4, pp 623-39.
76. McCahill, M. (2002) The Surveillance Web: The Rise of Visual Surveillance in an English City. Cullompton: Willan, pp 181-2.
77. Thrift, N. (1996) New Urban Eras and Old Technological Fears: Reconfiguring the Goodwill of Electronic Things, Urban Studies, Vol. 22, No. 8, pp 1463-93, at pp 1468-9.
78. Marx, op. cit., pp 9, 28-9.
79. Latour, B. (1987) Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society. Milton Keynes: Open University Press, pp 227, 232, 259.