Slashdot Mirror
London Police Credit CCTV Cameras With Six Solved Crimes Per Day
stoilis writes "CCTV cameras across London help solve almost six crimes a day, the Metropolitan Police has said. According to the article, 'the number of suspects who were identified using the cameras went up from 1,970 in 2009 to 2,512 this year. The rise in the number of criminals caught also raises public confidence and counters bad publicity for CCTV.'"
A large proportion of the cash has been In London, where an estimated £200 million so far has been spent on the cameras. This suggests that each crime has cost £20,000 to detect.
From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/6082530/1000-CCTV-cameras-to-solve-just-one-crime-Met-Police-admits.html (1.5 years ago)
--- I do not moderate.
There's a huge difference between a "crime solved" and a "crime detected", as Copperfield, Bloggs, and Bystander have so often explained.
The first point you make is true, at least if you consider non-custodial sentencing to be lax, although I don't agree with you that it's a bad thing; in the UK at least prison governors have repeatedly stated that imposing short custodial sentences leads to increased reoffending because it disrupts the person's life, often leaving them unemployed and homeless on their release, but doesn't give them enough time inside to receive useful training or counselling.
The second point, though, is the one I really wanted to respond to, as it is a complete untruth. UK law, to summarise enormously, allows anyone to respond to a perceived threat with a reasonable amount of force. It also accepts that people cannot be expected to weigh the amount of force required exactly in the heat of the moment and therefore gives them a great deal of leeway. What's more, the CPS guidelines, as well as containing the general proposition that prosecution should only be undertaken where it is in the public interest, also states that "it is important to ensure that all those acting in good faith to defend themselves, their family, their property, or in the prevention of crime or the apprehension of offenders are not prosecuted for their actions". It is only where the degree of force used is manifestly disproportionate (as in the case some time ago of a 20-something-year-old man who was pushed on the shoulder by a pensioner and "defended himself" by punching the man to death) or where it has crossed the line from self-defence to vigilantism that a prosecution will even be begun, let alone a conviction secured.
The tabloid media regularly stir up controversy by claiming that people are being prosecuted for defending themselves from violent criminals. I am yet to encounter a single case of this nature in which a person has been sentenced for what was in actuality self defence (take, for example, the Tony Martin case, portrayed by the tabloids as reasonable self defence, but where even a cursory inspection of the case report shows that the killing was pre-meditated and that his claims in court had been shown to be untrue; or the recent case where the media claimed a man had been imprisoned for defending his family, but where the "defence" took place after all danger had passed, when the father had rounded up some friends, armed himself and beaten the assailant almost to death on the street). Repeated Government reviews have come to the same conclusion; there is simply no foundation to the claim that victims are prosecuted for reasonable self defence.