Abstract
Through interviews with police and document analysis this article examines the movement of video surveillance images from source to police to the courts in order to assess and refine the surveillant assemblage concept. Using this concept, the case study reveals asymmetrical criminalization processes involving movement of this visual information. The study finds that most video surveillance images transferred to police come from private sources as a consequence of function creep and that their movement epitomizes creation of criminalized ‘data-doubles’. However, the article argues that this criminalizing movement through the police is revealed as less than a seamless process; it is dependent on human labour and encounters forms of resistance along the way that include increased police workload and technological limitations.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Information is that ‘which is objectified in institutional representations, a property and resource that provides a capacity for action’ (Ericson and Haggerty 1997: 83–84).
This information was retrieved after another suspect, who was cleared by other information, had been subjected to covert police surveillance due to tips received through release of video surveillance images.
It is unknown if other evidence was deployed.
This procedure may gradually change due to the 2008 Nikolovski hearing in Quebec in which a judge found that surveillance images obtained using a specific protocol for creating a copy (i.e., not shutting down the system) were admissible as evidence (R. v. MacNeil 2008).
Both hypothetical situations assume other physical evidence (e.g., fingerprints) is unavailable.
Charges in the second case were still pending at the time of writing.
References
Bogard, W. (2006). Surveillance assemblages and lines of flight. In D. Lyon (Ed.), Theorizing surveillance: The panopticon and beyond (pp. 97–122). Portland: Willan Publishing.
Coleman, R. (2004). Reclaiming the streets: Surveillance, social control and the city. Portland, OR: Willan Publishing.
Coleman, R., & Sim, J. (2000). “You’ll never walk alone”: CCTV surveillance, order and neo-liberal rule in Liverpool city. British Journal of Sociology, 51, 623–639.
Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987). A thousand plateaus. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Doyle, A., Lippert, R., & Lyon, D. (2011, forthcoming). Eyes everywhere: The global growth of camera surveillance. London: Routledge.
Ericson, R. (2007). Crime in an insecure world. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Ericson, R., & Haggerty, K. (1997). Policing the risk society. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Fernandez, L., & Huey, L. (2009). Editorial: Is resistance futile? Thoughts on resisting surveillance. Surveillance & Society, 6(3), 198–202.
Goold, B. (2008). The difference between lonely old ladies and CCTV cameras: A response to Ryberg. Res Publica, 14, 43–47.
Haggerty, K., & Ericson, R. (2000). The surveillant assemblage. British Journal of Sociology, 5(4), 605–622.
Hay, C. (1995). Mobilization through interpellation—Bulger, James juvenile crime and the construction of a moral panic. Social & Legal Studies, 4(2), 197–223.
Hier, S. (2003). Probing the surveillant assemblage: On the dialectics of surveillance practices as processes of social control. Surveillance & Society, 1(3), 399–411.
Hier, S. (2010). Panoptic dreams: Streetscape video surveillance in Canada. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.
Hier, S., & Greenberg, J. (2009). The politics of surveillance: Power, paradigms, and the field of visibility. In S. P. Hier & J. Greenberg (Eds.), Surveillance: Power, problems and politics (pp. 14–29). Vancouver: UBC Press.
Hier, S., Greenberg, J., Walby, K., & Lett, D. (2007). Media, communication and the establishment of public camera surveillance programmes in Canada. Media, Culture & Society, 29(5), 727–751.
Hillyard, P., Pantazis, C., Tombs, S., & Gordon, D. (2004). Beyond criminology: Taking harm seriously. London: Pluto Press.
Huey, L. (2009). False security or greater social inclusion?: Exploring perceptions of CCTV use in public spaces accessed by the homeless. British Journal of Sociology, 60, 279–297.
Kinsense, L. E. (2010). The portable CCTV analysis kit. http://www.kinesense-vca.com/downloads/Kinesense_LE_Overview.pdf. Retrieved May 1, 2010.
Leman-Langlois, S. (2009). Public perceptions of camera surveillance. In A report on camera surveillance (pp. 41–52). Ottawa: Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.
Lippert, R. (2009). Signs of the surveillant assemblage: Privacy regulation, urban CCTV, and governmentality. Social & Legal Studies, 18(4), 505–522.
Lippert, R., & Wilkinson, B. (2010). Capturing crime, criminals, and the public’s imagination: Assembling crime stoppers and CCTV surveillance. Crime, Media, Culture, 6(1), 132–157.
Lyon, D. (2007). Surveillance studies: An overview. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Manning, P. (1996). Information technology in the police context: The “sailor phone”. Information Systems Research, 7, 52–62.
Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. (2008). Guidelines for overt video surveillance in the private sector. Ottawa: Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.
Phillips, S. (1997). Identifying the criminal. In S. Phillips, M. Harworth-Booth, & C. Squires (Eds.), Police pictures: The photograph as evidence (pp. 11–31). San Francisco: Chronicle Books.
Ryberg, J. (2007). Privacy rights, crime prevention, CCTV, and the life of Mrs. Aremac. Res Publica, 13, 127–143.
Walby, K. (2005). How closed-circuit television surveillance organizes the social: An institutional ethnography. Canadian Journal of Sociology, 30(2), 189–214.
Walby, K. (2009). Police surveillance of male-with-male public sex in Ontario, 1983–1994. In S. P. Hier & J. Greenberg (Eds.), Surveillance: Power, problems and politics (pp. 46–58). Vancouver: UBC Press.
Wright, S. (1978). New police technologies: An exploration of the social implications and unforeseen impacts of some recent developments. Journal of Peace Research, 15(4), 305–322.
Case Law
R. v. MacNeil, 2008 Q.C.C.S. 915.
R. v. Nikolovski, 1996 3 S.C.R. 1197.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
The authors contributed equally to the theoretical and empirical development of this article.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Wilkinson, B., Lippert, R. Moving Images Through an Assemblage: Police, Visual Information, and Resistance. Crit Crim 20, 311–325 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-011-9141-0
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-011-9141-0