“This Property Is under Video Surveillance by Day/Night Cameras. All Activity Is Being Recorded.” When stepping into any public place, such as plaza, hospitals, banks and so forth in the downtown of Yichang, it is common for people to catch sight of such public signs, which not only remind people of behaving themselves, but also frighten the criminals out.

　　For the first time, 6 sites along roads equipped with high-definition cameras have been publicized by the Traffic Police Detachment of Yichang Municipal Public Security Bureau in early May, 2013. According to the reports released by Xiling District branch of the municipal public security bureau, thanks to the cameras at the scene, the police have successfully cracked many cases with the aid of surveillance cameras.

　　Nowadays, countless cameras installed in unnoticeable places like corners or treetops are regarded as police’s “secret weapon”. According to the rough statistics, there are at least several thousand cameras are in use all over the urban district of Yichang City. With over 5,000 cameras, the police in the 110 command center of the municipal public security bureau keep monitoring the whole urban district day and night, and all the cameras serves as a net with combined functions of photographing the traffic vehicles, automatically identifying the license plates, detecting alarming messages and serving as a integrated monitoring system.

　　As a policeman says, the public security in the communities rely much on the assistance from the vigilant and righteous old ladies there, but now surveillance cameras also become a useful kind of tools they can turn to. In the past years, the cameras made great contribution to unraveling several criminal cases.

　　Though many people hold that the increase of cameras in public place will more or less cause inconvenience to their private lives, the surveillance cameras, as Liu Fang, a professor of social psychology at the South-Central University for Nationalities suggests, are becoming the main means to maintain public order and prevent crime, and with them in public places, people with a propensity for bad or even evil deeds will behave themselves better.