‘A catastrophic lack of inquisitiveness’: A critical study of the impact and narrative of the Project Champion surveillance project in Birmingham

Abstract

This article focuses on both the narratives of Project Champion, a surveillance scheme in Birmingham in the UK that saw the installation of 216 closed circuit television and Automated Number Plate Recognition cameras in two areas which contained the greatest concentration of Muslims in the city. Considering the period of time throughout which Project Champion was conceived in 2008, instigated and eventually dismantled by July 2011, this article provides an unprecedented insight into the damaging impact that can occur if local agencies and institutions fail in their attempts to put central government policies into practice at the local and community levels. Whilst Project Champion is an extraordinarily intense and somewhat extreme instance of government counter-terrorism policy, this article allows for a range of issues that have previously been explored in a broader and largely national context to be considered in some depth at the highly localised level.