One of the funniest episodes of the old TV show “Happy Days” involved super-cool Fonzie having to admit he was wrong about something. He couldn’t even say the word. “I was…wrrr…” He just couldn’t do it.
Not me. I am wrong quite often. For instance, a few decades ago, a friend told me he had been asked to invest in something called cable television. He explained the concept. It would revolutionize the way we watch TV, he said. No longer would we be limited to three channels. We would soon have twenty or thirty. There was a catch: a monthly fee.
I laughed out loud. “No one is ever going to pay to watch TV,” I told him. “Not when you can get it for free!” He never let me forget that.
I also never believed that bottled water would catch on. Back in our country store, neither my dad nor I could imagine people buying water. I wonder what he would say about putting six quarters in a machine to buy air for your tires. A machine, I might add, that may or may not work.
I was also wrong about soccer and hockey. I never believed either sport would thrive in the south. In fact, I doubted that Nashville would support a pro hockey team. “Come on,” I said. We’ve got the SEC, the NFL, NASCAR, the Braves, and rasslin’.” If anyone had asked me, I would have told them to take their puck and go home. Down here, “icing” is what Mama puts on the carrot cake.
How wrong was I? Well, the Nashville Predators are huge. And if you put a soccer game and a baseball game side by side, I guarantee you’ll find more kids kicking a ball than swinging at one.
Last, but not least, I was seriously wrong about surveillance cameras. I thought they would take a big bite out of crime.
My television station features a report called “Crime Stoppers,” which started long before the “caught on camera” phenomenon. When we began airing the stories, we created re-enactments, hiring amateur actors to simulate a particular crime. Some of the actors played the perpetrators, and others played the victims. We gave viewers a look at where and how the crime took place, and we used sketches when victims were able to describe the suspect.
Now that security cameras are everywhere, we have pretty much stopped doing re-enactments. We can usually show the real thing. What were once fuzzy black-and-white images are now full-color and high-definition.
Also, the cameras are no longer confined to stores. For about a hundred bucks, you can put one on your front porch and in your living room. Every night on the news, the video is there for all to see. If you steal something today, there’s a good chance you will be on TV, the internet, and the front page tomorrow.
Yet, I was wrong about these cameras. I was naive enough to think that they would put a huge dent in crime. Who in their right mind, I thought, would even think about holding up a cashier, snatching a purse in a parking lot, or grabbing a package from your front porch? It seemed obvious to me the crime rate would plummet.
However, various studies done in the US and Great Britain show that surveillance cameras have little to no positive impact on crime. In several of the case studies, crime actually increased after the cameras were installed. Now, get this: the cameras often aid in solving the crimes, but they have not prevented the next batch of criminals from breaking and entering.
One police officer told me, “There are websites devoted to the dumbest criminals caught on camera. We laugh at them to keep from crying. I think some of them know they are on camera, but they are so high, they just don’t care.” He continued, “For some of them, they steal to support their habit. Others do it for the rush. They got away with it before, so they take it a step further. That security camera is low on their list of concerns. They are shocked when we arrest them. They have no idea they have been on the news. I don’t think they watch a lot of TV. They have other forms of recreation.”
A judge added, “They are criminals, pure and simple. This is what they do. They’ll follow a UPS truck, just to see them put a package on your porch.”
So while the cameras may help the police catch that crook, they don’t seem to prevent the one right behind him.
Maybe someday, I won’t be wrong quite as often. In fact, I’m hearing that fewer people are paying to watch TV now. Maybe I was right about that, after all.
