Microrecorders, a precious ally for crime-fighting citizens

Sometimes, due to lack of staff or financial means (especially in this particular conjuncture), police forces may not be able to cover each and every corner of their territory. In such cases it may be up to the common man, of course acting within the boundaries of law, to get organized in order to defend one’s own area or neighborhood, or to cleanse it from criminal threats by supporting the law’s work. In such cases, a valuable support can come from modern surveillance technology, specifically in form of a microrecorder, which can be very helpful in collecting evidence to be handed over to the police for further investigation.

For example, in the small Southern Italian town I am coming from, there is an underworld of small drug trafficking, and some neighborhoods are populated with pushers. Unfortunately, either for lack of public financing or personnel, or worse, for other reasons (I would not say that the police is exactly in cahoots with the pushers, they rather adopt a laissez-faire policy), the cops are unable to defeat this gang.

A friend of mine, unwilling to give in to the police’s inaction, decided to act on his own, of course not like in Charles Bronson’s Death Wish series, but rather by collecting evidence that he would later bring to the police, in order to help them catch the pushers who were boldly running their business in broad daylight.

At this point, he decided to get himself a micro recorder , as thin as a credit card but, within a few inches space, equipped with features such as a high sensitivity microphone, a voice activation sensor and a built-in hard drive.

Thanks to these characteristics, the miniature recorder can be activated automatically when its sensor detects a voice or a sound, storing up to 600 hours of recordings on its embedded hard disk. All this in a merely 4-mm thick, and a few inches wide device! Once my friend got his miniaturized recorder through an online specialized spy shop, all he had to do was hiding it inside a hollow space in the yard where the couple of pushers were always sitting and waiting for their customers.

Thanks to its voice activation, the miniaturized recorder’s battery can last up to one month or more.

In fact, after a month he retrieved his recorder, downloaded all recordings directly to his PC thanks to the USB cable connection, and made some copies of the relevant audio files on CDs which he sent anonymously to some police precincts in his region, including the one of his town, along with a letter and some photos that he had the chance to shoot to document the pushers’ activities.

By sending the material anonymously, he took care of his personal security, making sure that he would not expose himself and become a potential target in case of any leak of information; furthermore, by sending it to several precincts in the region, he made sure that at least one of them would act.

And act they did, because within a couple of weeks, the gang was defeated and the yard where once the pushers were ruling boldly, became once again a kids’ playground.

This kind of behavior by the citizen is sometimes necessary, when the State cannot guarantee enough security to its citizens, either for lack of staff or funds, or worse, because the local police are in friendly terms with the criminals. Not all citizens are ready to give in to the conspiracy of silence that is still running deep beneath the surface of our society, and get organized in order to support the Law and Order, of course without taking their place.