Comments on: Every breath you take, every move you make

By: Bos

Bos — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 11:32:38 +0000

But cameras are so much cheaper.

By: Reality Me » Knox County Schools Let’s Me Know Who’s Boss

Reality Me » Knox County Schools Let’s Me Know Who’s Boss — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 20:22:20 +0000

[...] Rant. You know, it’s the schools that will lead America away from democracy. [...]

By: djuggler

djuggler — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 17:57:33 +0000

Cameras, like locks, only keep honest people honest.

Put up cameras, particularly in this number, is treating the symptom and not the problem. The cost cannot be weighted in just the acquisition of the equipment, but must take into consideration the maintenance of the equipment, the staffing requirements for those to monitor the equipment and field requests for tape reviews, and for the lost time/salary/producitivity in the bureaucracy created in filing/archiving videos and making this tax payer supported video available (or not available-egad someone scream “privacy!”) to the appropriate people.

Additionally there is the cost of how the students feel about their school and about their society as they become desensitized to the concept of constantly being under surveilance. These students will become the legislatures who have no problem creating Big Brother laws in our retired future since they grew up being watched, a non-surveiled life will be a foreign concept.

Put up the cameras! Take down America.

By: cathy

cathy — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 17:31:53 +0000

No. A nanny state will not make things better. The kids who vandalize and steal have parents who are equally disenfranchised and will neither pay nor admit responsibility for their child’s actions. If those parents and students had a reason to care about the school, that would make a difference. More kids vested in the school would also create more peer accountability.

For Matt – http://b3ta.com/challenge/nanny_state

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 17:18:45 +0000

I have to throw the “Naive” card here. As a kid, I will f-it up for the fun of it, not because I’m not proud of it. Cameras will just make sure the right parents pay for the repairs.

By: ben

ben — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 15:55:31 +0000

Not the same thing, but a couple years ago our PTA spent a large amount of money building a fence alongside the playground.

To “protect” the kids from cars driving by.

The school has been there 40 years, and as near as I can tell, nobody has ever been hurt by running from the playground into traffic. But they needed protecting.

No, this just makes the people who bought the fence feel better, thinking now they have done something “to help.”