HNORRIS AND ARMSTRONG FELT IT WAS HIGH TIME TO DO SOME EVALUATING T...

4. H

Norris and Armstrong felt it was high time to do some evaluating themselves. They spent days, nights, and weekends in three different control rooms - one in a poor, multi-racial inner-city area, one in a prosperous country town and one in a major city center. ‘In a busy street’, says Norris, ‘there are hundreds of issues to focus on. So how do you decide who’s a likely trouble-maker andwho’s not? The answer, in all cases, is that it’s based on crude stereotypes.’

5 E

Norris is slightly surprised that a country where the concept of Big Brother has become part of the language should accept so many ‘little brothers and sisters’ to the point where its citizens are, he says, the most filmed in the world ‘without any democratic or legal controls’. To which I pointout that most people assume that if they’ve done nothing wrong then they have nothing to fear.