Singapore police have installed security cameras to fight prostitution, and the cameras have been effective in driving the working girls elsewhere. A lot of other people, too.
Shopkeepers in the Geylang district complained business had deteriorated since the cameras were put into operation last week, the Sunday Times reported."The men are staying away because they're afraid of being misunderstood by their wives, while our women customers are staying away because they don't want to be mistaken as prostitutes," Joyce Low, who runs an acupuncture and foot reflexology business in the area, was quoted as saying.
The manager of a clothing store, Simon Chan, also said business had been affected with sales down by 60 percent.
Leaving aside the negatives of trying to enforce solicitation laws, the general impersonalization of law enforcement troubles me. Traffic cameras, data base profiling, random roadside checkpoints and the like not only inconvenience law abiding citizens but make it harder for officers to discriminate. I use that word in the positive sense here. When an officer is face to face with a suspect that officer can make a better judgement as to the actual intent of the suspect.
If you've ever talked your way out of a traffic ticket you know what I mean. A camera can't discriminate between the reckless and the cautious.
H/T to Vice Squad.
