LETTER: Cameras fighting crime in Newcastle, not just snooping

IF RESIDENTIAL monitoring had been first introduced in Bradford, Leeds or Birmingham, there would have been justifiable protest on the grounds that there was a racist agenda behind the concern about crime.

It was not the authorities but journalists who put West End people in the frame, using them to further their ideas of a morally irresponsible "underclass", largely comprised of violent white unemployed males.

Once liberal commentators had turned social deprivation into a problem of white male working class culture, the funding was available to make the West End a showcase for a surveillance society.

Bonnie Coppin and Dave Chandler

Newcastle upon Tyne.