Safety is a concept, a perception that people associate with a place. It dictates how freely and to what extent they will use this space. And the physical and mental well-being of a community is dependent on the perceptions of its people.
Surveillance systems to keep you safe
There are a plethora of systems in place to ensure your safety like:
Video surveillance – cities are being fitted with CCTV cameras that record video-data that can be used right from preventing untoward incidents to traffic monitoring and control. Analytics of the video-data captured serves to ensure better response time in the future and curbing of crimes
Support of law enforcement – with technology improving in leaps and bounds, facial recognition, multi-angle recording, license plate identification, etc. aids law enforcement to gather primary evidence for investigations.
Sensors – heat, intrusion-detection, motion sensors, etc. help to secure places where the human eye or man-guards will be of little use. Apart from these, there are environment sensors that can detect air quality, pollution levels, noise levels, etc. to ensure the health safety of citizens.
What can you do?
As a member of the community – whether home or at the workplace or in a school – there are several steps that you can take to ensure not only your safety but also the safety of your loved-ones:
- Be a safety leader i.e. be each other’s eyes and ears
- Stay alert to changes in behaviour, environment or people
- Be up-to-date with safety procedures in public and private spaces
- Speak up and share any untoward incident you have witnessed
- Identify open spaces with lots of light where you can go to in case you feel threatened
- Don’t believe or spread rumours. Use judgment before you forward that message
- Participate in discussions to improve overall safety of a space