In the modern world, surveillance using various digital means, especially surveillance cameras, is actively practiced. Most major cities in developed countries are already covered by them from top to bottom. This is promoted to the public as a method of fighting crime, including violent crime. If there are cameras everywhere, few people will dare to steal property or attack others due to the inevitability of punishment. But it is not that simple. Surveillance cameras do help in preventing non-violent crimes. But in the case of violence, they are useless.
An analysis of 41 studies on this topic shows that everything depends on the type of crime. Cameras are best at preventing car thefts and property theft. Accordingly, the greatest effectiveness of cameras is achieved specifically in parking lots (a 51% reduction in crime), while in city centers, the impact of cameras proved to be insignificant. But most importantly, no evidence was found that cameras have any influence whatsoever on the number of violent crimes.
This fact only confirms that violence is not a rational and conscious act; the tendency to commit violent acts depends on the “nature” of the specific person. One cannot stop violence, which is irrational in its essence, by resorting to rational stimuli and deterrence mechanisms. Neither surveillance nor the punishment following a violent crime can reduce the level of violence.
The tendency to commit acts of violence, or more precisely, the inability of a specific person to restrain their aggressiveness, can generally be explained by a weak version of the Lorenz mechanism that inhibits intraspecific violence. Given that it is observed in a wide range of very diverse species, its presence in humans would be unsurprising. The only difference is that there was no evolutionary pressure on humans to develop a strong version of it, so some people possess precisely the weak version.
Understanding the irrational nature of violence, the fight against it must be based exclusively on an understanding of human biology and psychology. An obvious alternative to surveillance cameras is universal armament (a uniform balance of violence potential). Almost every aggressor has a self-preservation instinct, so knowing that a potential victim is highly likely to have a weapon, they will not attack. And if someone attacks anyway, the victim’s armament will not only allow them to deal with the violence specifically at the moment it is committed but will also exert that very evolutionary pressure to strengthen the innate inhibitor of violence, as in the case of some species that are heavily armed by nature and possess a strong version of it. Post-factum punishments, again, do not work. This includes even the adoption of the elimination of violent offenders after the fact, as this also requires people capable of violence outside the framework of self-defense (that is, initiating violence on their own part), which means this will not help reduce aggressiveness.
A more humane and effective option would be the development of gene therapy for violence, which would activate and strengthen that very Lorenz mechanism. In this case, pressure could be applied to violent offenders to stimulate them to take the corresponding drug. Alternatively, a dart could be fired at them during a direct attack, using this alongside non-lethal means of self-defense.
