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One Crime Solved Per 1,000 London CCTV Cameras
SpuriousLogic writes "Only one crime was solved for each 1,000 CCTV cameras in London last year, a report into the city's surveillance network has claimed. The internal police report found the million-plus cameras in London rarely help catch criminals. In one month CCTV helped capture just eight out of 269 suspected robbers. David Davis MP, the former shadow home secretary, said: 'It should provoke a long overdue rethink on where the crime prevention budget is being spent.' He added: 'CCTV leads to massive expense and minimum effectiveness. It creates a huge intrusion on privacy, yet provides little or no improvement in security. The Metropolitan Police has been extraordinarily slow to act to deal with the ineffectiveness of CCTV.'"
Some relevant links:
"Is Public CCTV Effective?"
This is relevant because "This report offers key findings from the 20 top studies/articles in the field and offers practical recommendations on how to optimize the use of public CCTV systems."
Key Findings Summary
* The expectation that CCTV systems should be deployed to reduce crime rather than solve crime has created huge problems.
* While the studies show serious doubt on CCTV's ability to reduce crime generally, a strong consensus exists in CCTV's ability to reduce premeditative/property crime
* CCTV is consistently treated as a singular, stable technology, obscuring radical technological changes that have occurred in the last 10 years
* Differences in per camera costs are largely ignored, preventing policy makers from finding ways to reduce costs
* Routine comparison of police vs cameras is counterproductive
Practical Recommendations Summary
* Stop claiming that CCTV can generally reduce crime
* Optimize future public CCTV projects around crime solving rather than crime reduction
* Optimize future public CCTV projects around material and premeditative crimes
* Target technologies that support crime solving and material/premeditative crimes
* Focus on minimizing cost per camera
and "CCTV in Glasgow"
Main Findings
- In the 12 months after installation of the cameras there were 3,156 fewer crimes and offences than the average for the 24 months preceding installation.
- Once the crime and offence figures were adjusted to take account of the general downward trend in crimes and offences, reductions were noted in certain categories but there was no evidence to suggest that the cameras had reduced crime overall in the city centre.
- The cameras appeared to have little effect on clear up rates for crimes and offences.
- 33% of people questioned in the city centre were aware of the cameras 3 months after installation and 41% 15 months after installation.
- Installation of the CCTV cameras did not reduce the proportion of those who said they would sometimes avoid a certain part of the city but there was a slight reduction in those who said they were anxious about becoming a victim of crime in the city centre.
- 72% of all those interviewed believed CCTV cameras would prevent crime and disorder; 81% thought they would be effective in catching perpetrators; and 79% thought they would make people feel less likely that they would become victims of crime.
- 67% of those interviewed 'did not mind' being observed by street cameras.
Personally, I think the cost is the only way we can argue back our privacy. Say you are not willing to pay for costly, ineffective measures.
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
Having hung around a few serious heroin and speed addicts in the past, let me tell you that they're far more knowledgeable about crime than any arm-chair criminal here on /.
- These characters were randomly selected.
I agree with you that it isn't usually happening now (tho I sat in a traffic class with someone busted for 1mph over the speed limit about 5 years ago).
I don't agree with you that it won't happen in the future. Every day we read about a way they have found to automate camera monitoring.
As someone basically 50 years old, it astounds me the things young people take for advantage and freedoms do not even know they have lost.
Even in my life time, people could commit a crime- go elsewhere and live a normal life. Things that might have been a stupid error by a 20 year old or sometimes more serious things. Now they are much more likely to go to jail. The law is much more unforgiving. Make the mistake and basically, your chance at a normal life is over.
The percentage of people in jail has increased to levels that would have been considered totalitarian when I was a boy.
Laws, like the RICO laws have been corrupted to be used for purposes never imagined.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
You're making a very common mistake, which is to assume that the CCTV cameras are owned by the government. The majority of CCTV cameras in London are installed privately in shops and offices.
While its fine to have 1000's of camera's, you need humans to view the output. Sure the camera can be recorded for later viewing, but, someone still needs to look at the recording. Digital lets you run the video relatively fast scanning for "events", however, there are limits (around 10..25X) At some point, the hard disk (I assume, not a tape) gets near to full, and the video data ends up being deleted. Assuming the camera is coded in MPEG4, there is around 1 gigabytes per hour to store (yes, I know, you can do better than 1 gig/hour. ) so you might be able to store approx 10 days on a 250 gig HDD. So, unless something has been found in less than 10 days, and copied to a less volatile medium, it is probably lost for evermore!
I personally suspect that not all camera's are even permanently connected to a recorder.