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One Crime Solved Per 1,000 London CCTV Cameras

Posted by kdawson on from the ready-for-my-closeup-mister-demille dept.

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.'"

13 of 404 comments (clear)

  1. Sure, but... by rm999 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sure, but how many crimes did it prevent? I always considered cameras more of a prevention, i.e. only idiots commit crimes in front of cameras.

    Obviously, another question is how many crimes simply moved to areas without cameras.

    1. Re:Sure, but... by Anonymous+Cowar · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Locks only keep honest people out of your house. A hoodie + hat or other facial obfuscation = entire purpose of the camera has been defeated. Criminals know how to defeat simple measures, it's what they do. So I would say that probably 1-2% of criminals would be completely deterred from robbing somebody, stealing a car, or whatever, but the rest would just scout out the cameras and not look at them and wear a hoodie to prevent good angle/shot of the face, or simply wear other methods of obscuring their faces.

    2. Re:Sure, but... by masmullin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yeah CCTV catches every nose pick, every ass scratch, every groin adjustment and potentially offers these images to the world

    3. Re:Sure, but... by twostix · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "Dad of 6 is beaten to death by gang"

      "The attack is believed to have been recorded by two nearby CCTV cameras. Police are currently studying the footage. "

      http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4161/is_20061015/ai_n16785042/

      "Student beaten to death yards from home"

      "Detectives, who will examine CCTV footage, want to speak to a cyclist who was seen in the area. "

      Do you think the sorts of crimes that CCTV cameras are supposed to "prevent" are committed by well mannered, forward thinking and highly analytical individuals?

      There's a big disconnect between people on these tech sites and reality of the mindset of much of the lower class.

    4. Re:Sure, but... by twostix · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's nothing like the twisted distortion of reality that you have attempted to portray here.

      If the police wish to follow my every movement then they need a court order - it's called surveillance and yes when in public if someone is following me around writing down everything I do and say that is not protecting my "human rights" that's violating them in a huge way. It's called harrasment and stalking if a police officer does it without the legal authority handed down by a judge on a case by case basis to do so.

      Your pathetic attitude toward mass state surveillance is quite depressing by the way, and no a camera can't protect your "human rights"

      "CCTV captures chilling moment drug-fuelled thugs beat OAP to death"

      "Hells Angels Member Beaten To Death in Sydney Airport"

      "Dad of 6 is beaten to death by gang"

      All happenened in front of or right next to CCTV cameras.

      Time to grow up ey?

    5. Re:Sure, but... by Kokuyo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I realize I'm a bit late but I think it needs to be said:

      In a world where you don't get hunted down if you so happen to fit the newest image of absolute evil, yes, total abolishment of privacy could indeed be a good thing.

      Unfortunately, in our world we prosecute people based on skin colour, sexual orientation, political stance and so on and so forth. People don't have to be guilty of a crime to get shunned. As long as this situation remains, privacy is the last bastion of freedom we have.

  2. One-time versus continuous cost by sunderland56 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    CCTV cameras are a one-time installation cost (with a minor amount of maintenance). Regular police forces are a continuous cost.

    A million cameras capture 1 per 1000 = 1,000 criminals caught per year. The following years should catch an equivalent number - for little additional cost. This is one of the basic problems with news reporting - if the BBC had splashed a big story headlined "CCTV Cameras Catch 1,000 Per Year", there would be an entirely different public reaction.

  3. The trade-off by Noren · · Score: 5, Insightful

    For the price and upkeep of 1,000 CCTV cameras I would expect that one could deploy at least one additional meat-based law inforcement unit complete with two eyes. This creature, that we'll call a 'police officer', might be expected to solve more than one crime per year.

    Absolutely I would hate to see the limited government dollars allocated for police protection squandered on inefficient ways such as CCTV.

    1. Re:The trade-off by MadnessASAP · · Score: 5, Insightful

      On the other hand when a cop sees someone commit a crime he can arrest him on the spot, all a CCTV camera can do is watch, unless of course the person happens to be wearing something that obscures his face or a headband studded with IR LEDs. In which case your camera is useless. Furthermore you can put a hell of alot more then just 1 cop on the street for the price of a 1000 cameras.

      --
      I may agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to face the consequences of saying it.
  4. Prevention vs. Action by GTsquirrel42 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    One huge difference: cameras can't actually apprehend anybody. There are cases upon cases of crimes being commited directly under watch of a camera that are never solved. Whether it's because the perp is wearing a hat or they never return to the city or whatever, were there an actual officer there it could have been stopped then and there: the crime would be prevented AND the perp could be taking directly to gaol, no passing GO. A woman being assaulted and saying "oh, we got it on camera so we /might/ be able to catch the guy" isn't going to feel any better until he's actually caught. Telling her they can't catch him because he was wearing a hat or the camera was turned 5 degrees too far to the left is just pouring salt into the wound.

    --
    "I was raised by a cup of coffee" -Homsar
    1. Re:Prevention vs. Action by indiechild · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Exactly right. I think the cameras in London are largely ineffective for actually preventing crime, and not always helpful when solving crimes after the fact either.

      My friend has been burgled twice and each time he caught some fantastically clear 640x480 frontal and side-on shots of the goblins in the act (he leaves the webcam running and uploading captures via FTP). He was even running Adeona and got the IP addresses of the perps who stole his laptops and gear, but the police never did solve the cases.

      Seems to me that the only thing you can do is set up an immediate notification service to alert you when webcam movement is detected, and then call the police or immediately run home with a baseball bat.

  5. Re: huge intrusion on privacy? by frosty_tsm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    i would really hate to have my privacy intruded upon while walking around in public ;p

    Solid point. However, there is a difference between:
    - Your actions going unrecorded in public
    - Your actions being recorded as a matter of chance (someone random taking your picture or accidentally including you in one)
    - Your actions always being recorded.

  6. more drunkeness, more assholes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The rate of alcohol consumption per capita in the UK is double that of the 50s. (sorry, was reading that the other day but I didn't bookmark it, some UK paper)Crime goes up the more drunks you have. Just human reality. Drunks don't care about *anything*, they lose the ability to think straight, cameras or no cameras. They'll act out aggressively without a second thought, or do other stupid stuff like pull street crime. Drunks or druggies, an easy wallet or purse grab plus a bit of sport making people hurt, they dig it.

    That's not all the reasons for increased crime, but it is a big part of it.

    Anyway, those cameras....this is my real point. Bull SHIT it was to reduce normal street crime, it is conditioning to get people there to accept full big brother action, and they have for the most part. One step at a time. First in public, now they are going to be putting them in "problem family homes". After that is accepted, they will expand the list so more fall under the "problem" category (like the US has that totally illegal and should have caused regime change by now big brother "no fly" list that all the cowering "flying public" herd animal peons accept, so it is no better there).

      Once they have enough cameras installed under the "problem family" category, they'll go all the way to every place, every home, every business, every building and all over outside. And if you refuse, well there you go, you are now a "problem", you are a "resister" so they have a precedent to do it that YOU accepted before without revolt as long as it wasn't "all that bad".

    If you wait until it "gets that bad", well gee, it IS that bad then and you blew your chance to stop it and now are stuck in some hideous north korean styled society, just with better tech, and you WON'T be able to revolt or stop things then. They already disarmed the population there, fed them that crap about "reducing crime". What a crock. Have to retreat inside your own home..and they get people to accept that insanity...I mean..damn

    You change things before they "get that bad", or accept your shackles and keep your eyes lowered and mind your masters. There is NO middle ground there, and you won't be negotiating with your owners either, nor their armed bully boys.

      ALL societies eventually reach that stage, no exceptions. Tech keeps getting better as history marches on, but despotism is ALWAYS the end game with societies that let government have more power than the people, and it turns into an "us versus them" deal and the ones with the most weapons and power and authority win, or there is a revolution and everyone loses because they waited too long to keep things sane.

        So keep drinking heavy, blitzed into perpetual stupidity. They *want* you that way, "solving street crime" is NOT their main priority.

        That's one of the ways they keep their herds under control. Petty crime, or even a rise in serious crime, is a trivial expense for them to have their populations dumbed down and compliant and accepting all sorts of crap like surveillance cameras, no fly lists, data bases, more and more regulations and "permits" needed for this or that. Drunkeness, drugged, illegal and "doctors prescription" drugs, bread and circuses plus disarm the serfs and peons and heavily arm the state's bully boys=controlled populations. That's the formula they always use.

        1% masters controlling 99% of the people, and it is apparently easy to do, it keeps happening over and over again.