I WAS in Taif the other day when I noticed that some of big billboards as well as school and building walls were spray-painted and there were some obscene words written on them. The vandals did not even spare the large billboard in the middle of one of the main roads. If we had installed surveillance cameras in public places, we would have captured the culprits easily. Apparently, they got away with it because our streets do not have any cameras. I came to know through a friend that the Jeddah Municipality had installed 112 surveillance cameras in the Corniche area. For that we thank the municipality but this number is small and more cameras should be installed. The following reports will make us feel frustrated and disappointed because we do not have surveillance cameras in public places. The United Kingdom has over six million such cameras installed all over the cities, especially London. The crime rate has gone down, thanks to these cameras. In fact, London is the first city to have this large number of cameras followed by Chicago, Huston, New York, and Dubai. UK Police can keep a close eye on everyone on the street for months and years, if they want to. There is a camera for every 11 persons; a person can be captured by 70 cameras a day from different angles. That is the reason for the low home and shop robberies rates as well as pickpocket incidents. A report said the robberies were down 70 percent. Over 95 percent of crimes are solved within days or weeks and the criminals committing them are nabbed. In Dubai alone, there are hundreds of thousands of surveillance cameras. I am not exaggerating when I say each square meter is covered by such a camera. Anything that happens on a street will be detected. Citizens and expatriate workers do not dare to violate or break the law because if they do, they know they would be captured by these cameras. Anyone caught in the act while engaging in some disgraceful practice will face the music. I think that is why our reckless young men turn into lambs when they go to Dubai. They are scared of violating the laws. I remember the story of a Saudi man who went to Dubai for the first time. He loved the spacious streets and decided to drift with his cars. The cameras captured him and he was arrested shortly and slapped with a fine of 500,000 dirhams because he put his life and the lives of others on the line with his recklessness. He also damaged the layer of the asphalt, which made the road unsafe. Do you know that even policemen carry hidden cameras in their clothes to capture all the details of any incident? In the Grand Mosque, the surveillance cameras helped authorities catch pickpockets. Because of them, the number of pickpockets has gone down. I am a staunch support of surveillance cameras and I hope authorities install the largest number of them on our streets, in our school, and our hospitals and malls.
