Step one? Buy a notebook.

The dollar store carries them. Keep a log. At minimum, record:

• Time and date of contact.
• Name and description of each person involved. If police are involved:
  
  • Write down each officer's Uniform ID. This will be a number or Rank followed by Last name somewhere on their upper chest.
  • If an officer does not have any idetification on their uniform, ask for it. Be polite but firm. "Uniform ID" is a different designation than "Badge number." When asked for a badge number, many officers will supply their Uniform ID.
  • Ask for, and record, the occurence number. Depending on the Police Service, this might be refered to internally as incident or occurence, sometimes as (or further as) an information. Most of the time, asking for the "case number" will get you the public reference id you're looking for.
• Statement of event - what happened?

Step two? Buy a camera.

Not a cell phone with an ability to take pictures, a point-and-shoot camera. This camera should:

• Be cheap. Not junk but not something you're going to risk your life to save. It's an evidence gathering tool, not something to create works of art or preserve your child's smile for all time.
• Have an optical zoom of at least 3x, preferably higher. The greater the zoom, the further away you can be.
• Have a movie recording feature. Pictures show an instant in time and, for the most part, after the fact results. Motion video tells a story.
• Be capable of recording average to above average audio when creating a video clip. Without audio, many situations will end up becoming "your word against theirs."

Step three? Consider security cameras.

Life in the welfare jungle has a lot to do with deviant behaviour. Most inhabitants understand the weight given to surveillance video and will opt to behave. This is your goal - "Behave!". Or, at least, it should be. If you want to change the world, get your own website :-p.

Surveillance cameras should:

• Be digital, IP (or, "network"), video streaming devices.
• Have "night vision." This generally involves the mechanical removal of a filter during night time hours. The sensors used in modern, digital surveillance cameras are sensitive to a larger portion of the light spectrum than is visible to the human eye. During daylight hours, when sunlight provides sufficient intensity of light within the spectrum visible to the naked eye, CMOS imaging sensors are filtered to remove other frequencies of light. At night, when visible light is at a minimum, the removal of the filter permits a CMOS sensor system to create greyscale representations of the results. This "night vision" light sensitivity band, commonly referred to as infra-red in product literature, is actually 850 nm light.
• Be capable of, at least, 30 FPS 720p H.264 video encoding/streaming. Higher resolutions, such as 1080p, are recommended.
• Be ONVIF compliant/certified. Many digital surveillance camera manufacturers offer free or low cost surveillance monitoring and recording software. ONVIF compatible equipment can be used with third-party ONVIF aware surveillance software.