Preventing and Solving Crime through Electronic Surveillance and Human Rights - Coursework Example

Please just send a message if you need anything. Thanks! and very sorry for the delay. Surveillance Is preventing and solving crime through electronic surveillance violating people’s right to privacy? Table of Contents Contents Contents 2 1. Introduction The world is increasingly becoming a “surveillance society” (Siegel, 2011, p.455) as new technology enable surveillance techniques that can constantly monitor people’s movement and behaviour. Information technology in the criminal justice system for instance increased effectiveness of law enforcement through electronic surveillance and other forms high technology data gathering. However, new surveillance techniques such as traditional closed circuit cameras, biometrics, GPS, and others raised some concerns over the lawfulness of intrusion and monitoring people’s private lives. Surveillance in criminology for some is not merely about providing law enforcement with effective means to keep track and monitor law breakers as some literature in criminal justice such as Zureik (2011) and Slobogin (2008) view it as an offensive form of social control, degrades privacy by intrusion and violation of fundamental human rights, illegal, one of criminal laws forbidding activities, a threat to legitimate freedom, and law enforcement’s tool that diminishes people’s privacy and autonomy. In contrast, this essay argues that the law is fair and it is there to benefit all members of society by reducing crime and other forms of injustice (Welsh & Farrington, 2009, p.11). The following sections analyse and discuss the issues surrounding law enforcement use of electronic surveillance systems, the criminal justice view of surveillance techniques, the conflict between human rights and crime prevention, and the benefits of surveillance in keeping our society safe. 2. Analysis and Discussion of Key Issues 2.1 The Nature of Surveillance In criminology, surveillance is defined as the secret watching of a particular bad characters and collecting information about activities of people who are likely to be involve in committing crimes (Vadackumchery, 2003, p.196). Authors like Elia Zureik and Christopher Slobogin argues that the right to privacy is at the centre of human rights thus loss of such right is like making life intolerable and losing individual autonomy and dignity (Zureik, 2011, p.216; Slobogin, 2008, p.4). This is because privacy and freedom are fundamental human right and the desire for both needs no justification or negotiation (Stamatellos, 2009, p.29). Moreover, the very nature of surveillance according to Stamatellos (2009) is problematic as it often involves what people will generally consider as intrusion, eavesdropping, unauthorised access to private lives, and presumption that all people are potential criminals (p.29). In 1961 for instance, the Court found the dependant in the Silverman v. United States, 365 U.S. 505 (1961) not guilty mainly because the surveillance “spike mike” driven by the police into the wall of Silverman’s house is illegal under the US Fourth Amendment. Another is Clinton v. Virginia, 377 U.S. 158 (1964) where evidence obtained from electronic surveillance was seen illegal by the Court mainly because it violates a reasonable expectation of privacy even if no trespassing occurred (Del Carmen, 2009, p.486). In the context of surveillance intrusion depends on the circumstances and according to Nash (2009) intrusion can only be established if the method of surveillance (i.e. camera) actually succeeds in taking pictures or footages. Otherwise it is merely considered as an attempted surveillance rather than intrusion resulting to violation of rights to privacy (p.321). Similarly, a person’s reasonable expectation of privacy is not automatic as in the case of United States v. Corona-Chavez, 329 F.3d 974 (8th Cir. 2003), police video surveillance of a drug dealer in a hotel room was considered constitutional and permissible because a person conducting a drug transaction with other people inside a hotel room has no reasonable expectation of privacy (Federico et al., 2008, p.292). This implies that particularly in apprehending criminals, the law is taking into account some limitations on people’s right to expect privacy even in a secluded area. Note that the other people inside the hotel room transacting with the dependant were undercover police officers who are well-aware of the video coverage. The argument that surveillance is generally presuming that all people are potential criminals is somewhat incorrect since in reality many people are not subjects of police surveillance as it is commonly applied selectively. This argument may be referring to regular surveillance in factories, malls, and other public places where majority of are monitored by CCTV. In these places, reasonable expectation of privacy is applied in toilets, dressing room, and other places where people usually “expect” privacy (Nash, 2009, p.322). Note the law enforcement surveillance is entirely different in nature as it is commonly intended to acquire evidence rather than monitor movement or productivity of people as in factories, offices, and others with valid business reasons (Flipp, 2005, p.17). According to Colvin & Copper (2009), provided that safeguards against abuse are in place, police surveillance is tolerable under the European Convention of Human Rights. This is because police surveillance is often with legitimate aims and is there to safeguard democratic institutions. Moreover, police surveillance is often limited to serious offences and where conventional means of enquiry are ineffective or have been attempted but not successful (p.30-31). 2.2 Criminal Justice View of Surveillance Information coming from victims and witnesses is a major determinant whether or not police can solve the crime (Wemmers, 1996, p.13) and for this reason, it can be safely assume that absence of information result to unsolved crimes. According to Travis (2011), police is involved in physical and electronic surveillance mainly because they need to gather evidence about a particular criminal activity. This in particular is conducted on people suspected of crimes and when there is insufficient evidence to obtain a search warrant (p.180). Although there are specific rules to comply in conducting surveillance, criminal law is generally encouraging that all persons suspected of crime must be placed under surveillance (Vadackumchery, 2003, p.196). Criminal law also encourages surveillance to make policing proactive rather reactive that often result to too many unresolved crimes. For instance, according to Cole & Smith (2009), 81% of police actions are triggered by telephone calls from citizens, 5% when they are approach by citizens, and 14 % from officers working in the field. Moreover, because reactive policing often wait for calls or notifications, police often arrive after the crime has been committed or when the criminal is already miles away from the scene or when no one is present in the crime scene to offer information (p.213). Proactive policing such as the use surveillance and undercover work seems much better in the eyes of the criminal justice system as even the efforts of the US homeland security has proactive emphasis when intercepting communications, monitoring of financial transactions and travel patterns, cultivating relationship with likely informers, and 24/7 surveillance are openly implemented despite criticism from human rights advocates. This is because study conducted about incident-driven policing shows that percentage of both victims reporting the crime and rates of arrest in cities is low compared to other places using proactive strategies (Cole & Smith, 2009, p.213). Proactive criminal enforcement and surveillance came from a number of somewhat useful strategic concepts such as target removal, removing the means to crime, reduction of pay-off, formal and natural surveillance. The idea behind target removal came from the fact that temptation increases the possibility of crime. For instance, quickly removing vandalism encouraging terrorism against a particular government prevent further spread of idea or paying employees with cheque rather than cash reduce the possibility of wage-snatching. Similarly, warning the public about a certain criminal modus operandi reduce the number of victims (Wells & Quick, 2010, p.451). However, removing the means to crime seems more logical as study shows that frequency of some type of crime were greatly reduced by removing the means to commit them. The occurrence of skyjacking today for instance has been reduced considerably compared to the annual average recorded in the early 1970s. This is because aircraft passengers and baggage are now strictly screened to detect weapons and bombs. In contrast, reducing the pay-off for crimes is somewhat applicable only to property crime. For instance, marking properties or possessions with indelible codes reduce its value to the thief and to the people who would acquire them illegally (Wells & Quick, 2010, p.451). Similar to removing means of crime, formal and natural surveillance both aims to deter potential offenders particularly those that are considered high-risk targets. These strategies in essence are the result of the somewhat pervading cost-benefit analysis in criminal justice or attempts to control crime situationally (Wells & Quick, 2010, p.451). Review of situational crime prevention conducted by Von Hirsch et al. (2000) suggests that it is being use primarily to steer and channel behaviour and reduce the occurrence of criminal activities (p.1). It is also an attempt to increase the efficiency of law enforcement and strengthen the legitimacy of the criminal justice system by using proactive techniques such as technical surveillance and even military means of policing (McLaughlin et al, 2003, p.384). The proactive mentally in the criminal justice system enable acceptance of surveillance as a basic investigative technique, a tool for actual, real-time investigation that is greatly valued particularly in getting search and arrest warrants. Proactivity in policing and surveillance also made law enforcement excellent witnesses in court because they can offer first hand observation and information regarding the dependant. Unlike cases that are often destined to have some problems in court as they heavily rely on civilian eyewitness, law enforcement officers carrying evidence gathered from surveillance rarely fail (Dyson, 2011, p.128). According to Stevens (2010) seeing surveillance as a “dirty business” (p.1) depends on one’s perspective thus clean in the eyes of those who support it. In Germany for instance, the 1993 law on Control of Drug Trafficking and Other Forms of Organized Crime and its amendment version in 1998 is very much aware of the aggravating of these types of crime and added a new tool that law enforcement can use. Aside from the old and existing ones, electronic surveillance measures was added including the introduction of private premises surveillance in procedural law (Okubo & Shelley, 2011, p.65). Similarly, the Patriot Act of the United States congress revised the standards for surveillance to allow law enforcement access to private records, enhance surveillance to stationary and moving wiretaps, and introduce “sneak and peak” warrants that allows search inside private residence (Roth, 2010, p.251). Clearly, the criminal justice perspective regarding surveillance eliminated some barriers for previously preventing law enforcement agencies from apprehending high-risk criminals. 2.3 The Conflict Between Human Rights and Crime Prevention Those who opposed law enforcement surveillance operations generally believed that justice can be achieved through non-intervention (Siegel, 2010, p.25). For instance, according to Siegel (2010), the life of people under surveillance, criminal or not are disrupted while their self-image is destroyed by the thought that they are bad, evils, and troublemaker in the eyes of the law. Moreover, surveillance promote anti-social behaviour as people gradually becoming stigmatised by law enforcement eavesdropping and intrusion of their private lives (p.25). Similarly, authors like Elia Zurek the right to privacy does not differentiate ordinary citizens and criminals as generalising loss of privacy renders life intolerable for those affected (Zureik, p.215) is in essence demonising police surveillance techniques while glorifying the privacy of those that will eventually do horrifying activities. For instance, Zureik (2011) specifically mentioned that “all people ...have the basic right to maintain a personal and family life” (p.216) and it is the state who must its “duty to protect all residents” (p.216). This author is somewhat attempting to show the conflict between human rights and crime prevention as if the latter is not important at all and crime is best left with reactive policing. Similar to Slobogin (2000) who favour the rights of individual to be protected against unreasonable searches and seizures and even suggest that surveillance implementation and reports should be made public (p.136), simply underestimating the forces of the other side – the criminals. Moreover, both authors seem to ignore the benefits of proactive policing and increasing number of crimes prevented through surveillance. They openly attempt to create a conflict by over exaggerating the need for privacy and mistakenly interpreting police surveillance and the rest of criminal justice methods as an act benefitting law enforcement rather than the larger population. The conflict between human rights and crime prevention in this essay’s view does not exist as human rights has certain limitations while crime prevention is a necessity that must be undertaken to save lives and ensure continuity of democratic institutions. According to Klang & Murray (2005), the motivation to prevent commission of a serious crime is more than enough to allow the application and acceptance of the deterrent effects of police surveillance. Similarly, there is no doubt the privacy is a fundamental human right but it should be removed or reduced in some special circumstances otherwise any attempt to detect criminal activity will be a violation of individuals’ right to privacy. For instance, if the details of known criminals are stored in a database and being used to actively monitor them with or without a crime being committed can be interpreted as dehumanising act regardless of the righteous objectives of surveillance (p.188). Clearly, it is the perspective of some that the right to privacy is permanent and applicable to all is what making life for law enforcement and crime prevention difficult. 2.4 Keeping Our Community Safe Keeping our community safe is one big responsibility and people who believed that crime is a menace to our society must make a choice between life safety and unlimited right to privacy. Decision-makers have to make a choice between human rights and crime prevention but they should always consider the larger public interest (Brady, 2012, p.64). For instance, in deciding which objectives to pursue they should maintain a balance and proportional choice if national security and crime prevention will prevail over the right to privacy. Freedom of expression and privacy are both fundamental human rights and guaranteed by Article 19 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights but the former is not absolute as there are limitations on it in Article 19 (3). Moreover, it carries with it special duties and responsibilities including respect of the rights of other people, protection of national security, public order, and morality (Mendel, 2010, p.3). The right to privacy is also not absolute as Article 4 of the ICCPR clearly states that in times of emergency, derogation of the right to privacy is necessary to protect the interest of the nation (Scott & Burchill, 2004, p.147). The question however is how far this protection of interest goes. Is it only for terrorism or nationwide threat? According to White (2008), there have been some instances when Court decisions balanced the right of privacy against state interest such as health and protection of life. For instance, several courts handling abortion cases in the United States rejected the unlimited notion of the right of privacy because the state has to protect the health, medical standards, and potential life. Moreover, US courts recognized the value of the right of privacy but it can only be justified if the legitimate interest of the state is at stake (p.95). Certainly, crime prevention should not be limited because people have the right of privacy as saving lives is more important than protecting the right of a few criminals. Police surveillance is an important tool in crime prevention and as a mentioned earlier, it is selective in nature and mostly intended for high-risk targets. There is no doubt that humans possess have fundamental human rights but like abuse of freedom of expression, unlimited right of privacy can result to more crimes. Keeping our community safe entails some important responsibilities such as preventing loss of life, apprehending criminals the soonest possible time, and suppressing the right of privacy in special circumstances particularly when public interest is at stake. 3. Conclusion There is no argument that the world is becoming a surveillance society because technology enhances the capability of law enforcement to prevent crime. Constantly monitoring the movement of people and their behaviour is not as bad as some authors think because prevention is more preferable than cure. Police surveillance is entirely different from surveillance of public places as it involves intrusion of privacy which authors mentioned earlier view as a fundamental human right. However, analysis of the criminal justice system and human rights suggest that there should a balance between rights and crime prevention as life is more important than the privacy of certain individual particularly when they are planning or already involved in criminal activities. Some human rights regardless of its importance in keeping human dignity have limitations because as discussed earlier, state and public interest should prevail over these rights. Conducted or performed following strict and lawful procedure, surveillance is considered legitimate particularly when its objective is to prevent loss of life. Lawful police surveillance is not by all means offensive form of social control as not all people are subject to surveillance. It does not degrade privacy through intrusion as its main objective is to deter crimes being planned by those who in essence already forfeit their right of privacy when they get involved with crimes. More importantly, they are not always illegal, forbidding activities, a threat to freedom and autonomy because the law is fair and such act of law of enforcement officers follows certain rules and respects the rights of individuals. Lastly, those who strongly believed that surveillance is invasion of privacy and disrespect to human dignity will benefit from the fact that crime prevention decreased crimes and prevent further crimes from being committed. These include ordinary people who inherently value their right of privacy and those who perceived this right as absolute. 4. Reference List Brady A, (2012), Proportionality and Deference under the UK Human Rights Act: An Institutionally Sensitive Approach, Cambridge University Press, UK Cole G. & Smith C, (2009), The American System of Criminal Justice, International Edition, Cengage Learning, US Colvin M. & Cooper J, (2009), Human Rights in the Investigation and Prosecution of Crime, Oxford University Press, UK Del Carmen, (2009), Criminal Procedure: Law and Practice, Cengage Learning, US Dyson W, (2011), Terrorism: An Investigator’s Handbook, Elsevier, US Ferdico J, Fradella H, & Totten C, (2008), Criminal Procedure for the Criminal Justice Professional, Cengage Learning, US Filipp M, (2005), The Practical Guide to Employment Law, Aspen Publishers Online, US Klang M. & Murray A, (2005), Human Rights in the Digital Age, Routledge, UK McLaughlin E, Muncie J, & Hughes G, (2003), Criminological Perspectives: Essential Readings, SAGE, UK Mendel T, (2010), Restricting Freedom of Expression: Standards and Principles, Centre for Law and Democracy, pp.1-23 Nash J, (2009), Workplace Privacy: Proceedings of the New York University 58th Annual Conference on Labour, Kluwer Law International, US Okubo S. & Shelley L, (2011), Human Security, Transnational Crime and Human Trafficking: Asian and Western Perspectives, Taylor & Francis, UK Roth M, (2010), Crime and Punishment: A History of the Criminal Justice System, Cengage Learning, US Scott D. & Burchill R, (2004), Defining Civil and Political Rights: The Jurisprudence of the United Nations Human Rights Committee, Ashgate Publishing, US Siegel L, (2008), Criminology, Cengage Learning, US Siegel L, (2010), Essentials of Criminal Justice, Cengage Learning, US Slobogin C, (2008), Privacy at Risk: The New Government Surveillance and the Fourth Amendment, University of Chicago Press, US Stamatellos G., (2009), Computer Ethics: A Global Perspective, Jones & Bartlett, UK Stevens G, (2010), Privacy: An Overview of Federal Statutes Governing Wiretapping and Electronics Eavesdropping, DIANE Publishing, US Tambani D, (2002), Ruled by Recluses?: Privacy, Journalism, and the Media After the Human Rights Act, Institute for Public Policy Research, US Travis L, (2011), Introduction to Criminal Justice, Elsevier, US Vadackumchery J, (2003), Crime Law and Police Science, Concept Publishing Company, US Von Hirsch A., Garland D, & Wakefield A, (2000), Ethical and Social Perspectives on Situational Crime Prevention, Hart Publishing, US Wells C. & Quick O, (2010), Lacey, Wells and Quick Reconstructing Criminal Law: Text Materials, Cambridge University Press, UK Welsh B. & Farrington D, (2009), Making Public Places Safer: Surveillance and Crime Prevention, Oxford University Press, UK Wemmers J, (1996), Victims in the Criminal Justice System, Kugler Publications, Germany White J, (2008), Contemporary Moral Problems, Cengage Learning, US Zureik E, (2011), Surveillance and Control in Israel/Palestine: Population, Territory, and Power, Taylor & Francis, UK Read More