Originally Posted by Small Batch:
Second, no, cameras don't need someone constantly monitoring them to be useful. Most security cameras are not monitored live. They record the video to media, which is usually viewed only after some other evidence of an incident is discovered. Being able to view that recording allows corrective action to be taken.
Ummm isn't that what I said. They are useful AFTER an incident is discovered.
I actually was hired to watch two centers video cameras. That was my primary job for the centers. I had a jumbotron monitor and had just color video feed. I KNOW what watching cameras means. Do you know anyone in the country who has the job of watching daycare cameras? I had three decades of child care experience behind me and I had to teach myself to interpret what I was seeing so I could PREVENT accidents and abuse. Even with the staff KNOWING I was watching they worked their way around many things until I figured it out. I had the ability to call directly into the room and speak to them LIVE as it was happening... they still tried to beat the system.
They would go into closets with nothing in their hands and come out with nothing in their hands (talk on their cell phones they smuggled in their bras)
They would position the babies with the babies back to the cameras when they were feeding them.
They would rearrange the furniture in the room to block the view and then have their backs to the camera.
They would go to the wall right underneath the camera out of view. They would look at their room on camera and instantly see the blind spots... I would see them coming in and out of the blind spots.
They would FALL ASLEEP during nap time....
and on and on even though they knew they were being watched WITH a dedicated camera watcher. Of course we corrected things as they happened. We made them put the furniture in a position where I could see the best. We timed how long infants were in equipment and made calls to MAKE them take the infants who fell asleep in equipment out and put them to bed.
It was a work in progress every day... People don't just do the right thing because there are cameras. They learn in a couple of weeks how to beat them if they want to.
The ones who were corrected and didn't like the intrusion of being on camera and watched LEFT to go to a center where they just had cameras but no one watching or no cameras at all.
You said "But people tend to behave differently if they think they are being observed. And there truly are a lot of studies showing this. It's referred to as the observer effect or Hawthorne effect."
Hawthorne this... just a small sampling... All of these workers knew they were in rooms with cameras. Pay attention to the
worker in the first one really closely. Some of these cases the workers were employees for YEARS and on camera. Some months... but the truth is that the workers get used to the cameras very quickly and they know how to work around them or they know they have a low likelihood of the video ever being watched.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGIt9wY2gpc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98_uScXl93A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmTecRray1U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie5BL9uOv18
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLk7G_6JhnM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAiMSy3oTjs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlWHnhU2yI0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_dyLSnjIzU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKxQjZDZ5Lc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWZlgxm-RlA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UI_aJI-GFdY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vs-P7YvCWEQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBhUBnmOUmE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGf3wZ1-uPA