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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.'"
FTA: "The Met said among the 2,512 suspects caught this year, four were suspected murderers, 23 rapists and sex attackers and five wanted gunmen."
But, what were the other 2,479 (98.7%)?
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Last year, the headline was "One Crime Solved Per 1,000 London CCTV Cameras".
The rate can't be much better this year.
- RG>
Well, it would seem to be much better.
From the article, there's just under 60,000 cameras now. Six crimes solved per day times 365 days = about 2,200 crimes solved. So that's about one crime solved per 30 cameras per year.
Going from 1/1000 to 1/30 is a massive improvement, though I'm guessing that the difference isn't just the police program reaching maturity or something like that. For starters, I'll bet they count crimes differently between the two programs.
Still, even the modern figure seems pretty bad. So you've got 30 cameras up all year, with all the needed infrastructure behind these 30 cameras, and all together, they solved one crime. A quarter million hours of surveillance (30 cameras * 24 hours * 365 days) and you only solve one crime.
What's the point of giving petty* thieves more than a small fine or a caution upon conviction?
Should everyone, no matter how minor or severe the infraction, be sent to Federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison, where they get to make big rocks into little rocks until they die and get buried under a small white cross across the way from their cell?
Should the presence of video evidence, or the lack thereof, contribute to such sentencing? Or perhaps more importantly: Should the expense of such video evidence be a factor in the sentencing?
Discuss.
*: I wanted to use the word "minor" there, as in "minor infraction." But that might be confused with "minors," so I didn't use that word. "Petty" is the best I could come up with, though it doesn't quite fit either, but at the same time I wanted to be concise. In a twist of irony, in the course failing to conjure a better adjective than "minor" for the sake of being concise, it seems that this footnote has eliminated all concision in an attempt to explain my choice of words lest they be misconstrued by the pedants here (of which I am one). Bummer.
Kid-proof tablet..
The problem is that sentencing in the UK is pretty lax for non-petty crimes as well. And victims are often prosecuted if they do anything to try to protect themselves. It's a system that rewards violence, punishes resistance, and doesn't provide any incentive to change for the criminals.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Sure you can: http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/linkscopy/GlasgowCCTV.html
The drop in crime with cameras is the exact same as the drop in crime everywhere. If the cameras themselves had anything to do with it, you'd see a larger drop in crime where they're used.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
There's a huge difference between a "crime solved" and a "crime detected", as Copperfield, Bloggs, and Bystander have so often explained.
They are right, they caught me doing an illegal right turn on a scooter with CCTV and sent me a ticket. Crime +1.
However, when I was hit by a hit and run driver under such a camera, flew over the bonnet but managed to get their license plate number and call it in immediately. Nada. They wouldn't even go around to the persons place where the car was registered and the investigation unit told me they would *never* go around to someone's place for a hit and run unless there was serious injury inflicted and then repeated *serious*.
When I left a bag behind in the Eurostar with expensive camera lens and called it in immediately. When I got the bag back there was a lens from 300 quid missing. I called the transport police. I thought they would have trouble seeing the lens on the screen but he reported that he couldn't identify me. Despite that I was wearing motorcycle gear and arrying a motocycle topbox. I suspect he didn't even look.
So yeah. They are definately used to give tickets to criminals breaking traffic laws and for parking illegally as well.And they have been seen to be peering deep into people's bedrooms. Possibly they are used in very large crimes, but when the policitians talk crime I imagine that most people think of across the spectrum crime. If they knew that in reality 95% of all crime that could benefit from CCTV detection it isn't even bothered with they might think differently. Joe public won't have a clue unless they can tally it up against personal experience and in my case it sucks.
That's why Britain has sky-high crime rates compared to execution-happy Texas.
Oh wait....
If someone wanted to murder and rob me I would rather a policeman standing where the camera is rather than the camera recording me getting murdered.
I just don't get why the Brits aren't more upset at the establishment 'keeping any eye' on them 24/7. Its already been proven that given the # of laws on the books NO-ONE can avoid committing an infraction against the law. A camera system that extensive means the gov't has the ability or at least the means to prosecute just about everyone in the country. Not to mention that treating everyone in the country as lawbreakers would do nothing more than enforce bad behavior, or at least anti-social behavior. I would think everyone would be walking around with Anonymous masks in public just to keep the illusion of privacy... or is anonymity illegal too?
If I sound stupid, it's not me talking....