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Under Surveillance By Yuichi Koyama 6/8/2005 |
At Inuyama Moegigaoka, a newly developed housing project in Inuyama, Aichi Prefecture, the watchful eye of a
security camera never lets up. Eight security cameras monitor entrances and even the adjacent park around the clock.
The selling point for the 300 new housing lots? Peace of mind.
Public anxiety over increasing crime is one reason residents want the
intense scrutiny, which some would call an
invasion of privacy.
In the past several years, the media have intensely covered heinous crimes, including the brutal slayings of families, the kidnappings of young children, and even injuries and deaths perpetrated by intruders at elementary schools.
Residents can check the Internet to see the images taken by the cameras, and an administrative center stores the video images for a week-just in case.
Moegigaoka is one of many communities installing
surveillance systems. Local governments are also providing subsidies for surveillance systems on the assumption they help reduce crimes.
In fiscal 2003 and 2004, Tokyo subsidized
surveillance cameras for 40 shopping districts. Combined with subsidies provided by municipalities and wards, the amount came to about 240 million yen. Osaka and Fukuoka have similar subsidy systems.
According to
Mitsubishi Electric Corp., sales of security cameras are steadily growing. Demand is particularly rising among schools and businesses, such as pachinko parlors, with a lot of customers.
Demand is also growing for biometric personal identification systems that check physical attributes such as fingerprints.
Fuji Keizai Co., a private market-research company, estimates the demand for these kinds of security systems will reach about 400 billion yen in 2006.
But are security cameras really effective in preventing crimes? Possibly.
Masahide Maeda, professor of criminal law at
Tokyo Metropolitan University, studied what happened when police
surveillance cameras were installed in Tokyo's notorious Kabukicho entertainment district. He used data compiled by the Tokyo metropolitan police.
According to the data, both the number of serious crimes, such as arson and robbery, and less serious ones, including break-ins and theft, dropped by more than 60 percent from 2000 to 2002, before and after police installed security cameras. Source:
asahi.com
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