CCTVs and the Criminal City

Abstract

This paper investigates how surveillance technologies used by the police, such as close circuit cameras (CCTVs) along with facial recognition, further solidify the perception of poor areas of the city as criminal, thus limiting the opportunities of the residents of these areas culturally, socially, and economically. Slums, immigrant colonies, and shanty towns have long been considered hotbeds of crime and illegal activities. These areas are generally marked as unsafe in the popular imagination. I am interested to see how (and if) communities in these spaces modify their behaviour in order to escape the extra watchful presence of the state in the form of CCTV cameras. I also want to see how these spaces evolve in terms of their interaction with other parts of the city as a result of the use of such exacerbated surveillance technologies. This paper is based on ongoing ethnographic work in one such marked area in the North East part of Delhi where video footage from CCTV cameras, along with mobile phone cameras, was extensively used for police investigations (with additional use of a standalone facial recognition program) following deadly riots that killed a record number of people in the area and destroyed many businesses in February 2020.