Taipei has an enormous amount of cameras on the streets. While they are there to deter crime, I'm not sure if they actually work. Statistically Taiwan does have a pretty high crime rate.
In fact one fact that a foreigner friend likes to share is that the murder rate in Taiwan is very close to the murder rate in America. In America 4.8 out of every 100,000 people will be murdered, while in Taiwan it's 3.2 out of every 100,000 people. Not that much difference, and with it being illegal in Taiwan to have a gun, most of those murders are extremely brutal knife attacks (a subject I will be touching on in later posts).
I admit I will often parrot this statistic when some Taiwanese student or friend says "i'm going to america, but i'm so worried, how can I be safe?" I usually tell them that any place they will be visiting is the touristy areas, and thus rather safe. But I get it, statistics or not, Taiwan feels like a very safe place. There is an extra level of safety that you can feel here that you wouldn't or couldn't necessarily feel in other countries. And I'd be hard press to tell you some area of the city you shouldn't go or some time of night that you shouldn't be out alone.
Getting back to the cameras, I don't know what they are actually for though. For example I seldom drive anymore because a friend got in a car accident right in front of many cameras, and had to go to the police station to write up the report, but there should have been no need for this. she urged the police to just watch the video to see what happened, but they refused. They said the video is just for people who drive away. I guess that means they should tell people to drive away after an accident, if they want the camera to show what happened.
What I think the cameras are really there for, are the TV news channels. Often with some reported event, all the video is from these street cameras. They don't hold back either. I remember one story about a lady who killed another lady and chopped up her body into seven parts, and then put them in a bag and put the bag on the back of her scooter, and drove away. They had video of her loading the bag onto her scooter and then driving away.
So I guess if you really want to be on TV, Taiwan is the place to be. Just commit a crime and while you may not get arrested for it, you will definitely be on the news!
