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The psychology of surveillance
Just had an interesting thing happen.
Several items have been walking away from little used locations at my job... off-season storage, locker rooms, etc.
The timing and nature (as well as the limited access to certain areas) led us to believe it was someone who works here...
The decision was made to install cameras and we chose the most visible, ugliest, brightest red LED models we could.
Of course... the activity stopped... or rather - those areas were no longer targeted, but the theft moved to other areas.
This is a campus with several stadiums, and countless numbers of secure locations where things are stored during the off-season... the cost to surveil each and every area would be ridiculous... so i tried an experiment.
during a meeting that included a good number of general staff, i let it be known that "thanks to the new security measures - the theft has stopped in all areas we placed cameras in. The best part about it? the cameras are all fake. We installed decoy deterrents, and saved a bundle!"
that was it.. I didn't dwell on it, and progressed through the meeting without another mention of it.
Obviously - the cameras are very, very real but the merest mention of them being fake was enough to embolden the employees who were behind all this.
With the thefts having stopped - we no longer needed to add extra late night shifts for security to patrol that quadrant of the stadium.. So two employees actually showed up with hand trucks and started helping themselves to a whole bunch of attractive [shizzle] (mostly merchandise items that were new and could be easily resold)
and we have it all in crystal clarity on our fake cameras. One of the guys even got up on a chair to examine the fake cam, and after 30 seconds of thoughtful evaluation, declares to his partner "yeah - this [shizzle] is fake man, you can tell from the light, and look at how thick this cable is! fake!"
the value of the items stolen (we left it there intentionally as an attractive haul) exceeded 20,000.00 and all materials have been turned over to the police.
The items were recovered, and the employees arrested. Needless to say they are also fired.
Its funny though.. let someone who is up to no good know they aren't being watched, even if its and unlikely statement... and they walk right in to whatever trap you've laid..
sad, really.
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