So many cameras, so little to show for it…
CCTV boom has not cut crime, says police chief – Times Online
Billions of pounds spent on Britain’s 4.2 million closed-circuit television cameras has not had a significant impact on crime, according to the senior police officer piloting a new database.
Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville said it was a “fiasco” that only 3 per cent of street robberies in London were solved using CCTV.
Britain has more CCTV cameras than any other country in Europe. But Mr Neville is reported in The Guardian as saying that more training was needed for officers who often avoided trawling through CCTV images “because it’s hard work”.
It’s funny to read something like this, sitting at my desk at work, where I can see just outside my window three cameras pointed at the street. I guess nobody’s watching…
Your comment definitely is to the point.
The press release from Neville has been making the rounds for a day or two – I read it in the Guardian over the weekend. Funny, how subtle he tries to make his point that it’s not the technology at fault – it’s lazy, untrained and incompetent staff who simply don’t use it.
It’s like outfitting coppers with the latest high tech police car, all the computerized clobber in the front seat – and it spends half the day out of sight behind a donut shop.
I wonder if cameras only move crime around.
It’s like “The Club” I use on my car. I know it won’t stop a car thief but my hope is that they’ll steal the car next to mine that doesn’t’ have a club. But if all cars had clubs, I doubt car thefts would go down.
I think it’s probably sensory overload. It must be horribly boring to watch video feeds all day long. With the amount of cameras that they have it would seem to be and insurmountable task to view it all in a meaningful way.
Oh goody, they’re going to train people to watch the public.
4.2 Million cameras require how many people to “watch?”
That aside, the issue of public monitoring I thought proved its worth a few months ago with a subway bombing in London? Police reviewed the video tapes from cameras and were able to round up suspects in just a few days rather than the criminals getting away with it.
So==cameras help solve “important” crimes thereby preventing future crimes by those caught and jailed. From the start I would think that crime prevention or crimes stoppoed in process would be quite rare because of the requirement to be looking?
In the end, it’s a political decision==how much crime can be prevented by spending money on people monitoring camera’s. Seems to me one cop on the street can monitor one location. Same cop should be able to monitor what==10-20-30-400-500 camera locations?
So–of course the cameras cut crime. Issue is how much crime at what cost AND what are the alternatives?
>>It must be horribly boring to watch video
>>feeds all day long.
Who said anything about watching video feeds all day long? They just look at the ones that were recording the goings-on in the area where a crime was committed. Doesn’t seem like THAT much work.
In any case, I guess the take-home message is that this ridiculous foray into Orwellian big-brother 24/7 monitoring of citizens turned out to be a dud.
CCTVs dont prevent crime – they are simply “eye-witnesses” to crime. Eye-witnesses with poor, blurry vision.
Only law enforcement prevents (deters) crime. That means police walking along the street (not in cars).
I think the lack of training is what could make this dangerous. Just like the morons at the airport asking you to take off your shoes. They don’t catch everything or most things, except bottles of hair products that are too big. The people watching these cameras probly look for the obvious and miss the time consuming real crimes. I bet the streets with the hot chicks get a lot of attention.
The CCTV’s are not going to do squat against crime as long at the dunderheads in the UK government maintain their open-border policy towards anyone who pleads for amnesty – especially the former colonies in the middle east.
And the magnet that attracts all these these poorly educated and impoverished immigrants is the British socialized reward system. They get a better financial deal in England than they do in Pakistan.
It’s no wonder why so many affluent Brits are fleeing the country in droves.
CCTV might not stop crime, but there are some benefits, after all.
Shawn “Shanks” Daughtry and Demetrius “Demeet” Wardsworth. Without CCTV, these two miserable scumbags would never have been caught.
“A nearby surveillance camera captured portions of the attack and that Boston police used that to get their first glimpse of the suspects.”
http://tinyurl.com/5gum6y
#5 – That aside, the issue of public monitoring I thought proved its worth a few months ago with a subway bombing in London? Police reviewed the video tapes from cameras and were able to round up suspects in just a few days rather than the criminals getting away with it.
And that’s what you call successful?
I’m in favor of a technology that would have prevented the bombings.
A good life is a risky life. Let’s not ruin it with safety.
>>It must be horribly boring to watch video
>>feeds all day long.
Unless you’re a voyeur — then it’s a big turn on.
Wasn’t there a story on this blog a few months ago about a couple of girls who flashed one of those British CCTVs and got busted for indecent exposure?
I tried to Google it but with no luck.
Yeah, but they Coppers get to spy on teens necking in public (and even more in the bushes!) !!! So, it’s just PORN FOR PIGS OUT OF THE PUBLIC PURSE !!!
naturally, you wait until you’re out of cctv range before stabbing someone.
obviously, the solution is more cameras
#11–OFTLO==I recognize the dripping sarcasm, but it goes against your anonymity as freedom jag, so I’m left confused.
Maybe you can steer me in the right direction by giving an example of technology that would prevent the use of bombings?
Otherwise, please recognize that when you catch the criminals in one crime, you prevent the future crimes the same criminals would have committed–unless you think the majority of criminals only engage in illegal acts one time and then voluntarily call it quits?
Actually though==legalized marijuana given away free by the government could make everyone so happy and passive that crime rates including bombing would decline? Is that the type of technology you were thinking of?
#15 – but it goes against your anonymity as freedom jag
You don’t know (nor do I) what the technology is that prevents crime (there probably isn’t a technology that does that) but you do know it goes against anonymity? How do you know that?
By the way… Terrorist acts are not typical crimes. They will be committed whether the terrorist may get caught, or not. Hell, many terror attacks are committed by guys who expect to die. So catch them… don’t catch them… They will happen and when the terrorist is killed or caught, new terrorists take their place. Your cameras do not protect us against current or future threats.
Beating terror is a “hearts and minds” campaign, and it requires long term thinking.
When our “leaders” learn that they can’t win with brute force, maybe then we will be going in a direction that leads to improved security.
if there’s gonna be cctv — then every stream should be available to the public
#16–OFTLO==all criticism and questions with no suggestions? Not in the helpful mode today?
You ask questions that have already been asked and answered–not your usual style.
Anonymity is lost when your picture is taken in public places.
Crime is prevented when a criminal is put in jail in that he is not committing additional crimes nor helping others to commit crimes.
The fact that other criminals come along is no argument at all not to enforce the laws we have now.
What is the root cause of terrorism? It might be, or to some degree it could be, that one has the wrong religion?==How does one address that problem? In other words, some crime will be with us forever and the root causes are not “solvable” as we would wish. I agree with what I suspect you mean, we could stop making the situation worse.
False security implemented for the government contract. Nothing more. I need to go into the indelible ink paintball business and sell it to the rebels of the world.
#17
I would agree but then the problem would be a kind of reverse paparazzi, everyone with an agenda and signs getting their camera time.
#18 – #16–OFTLO==all criticism and questions with no suggestions? Not in the helpful mode today?
You ask questions that have already been asked and answered–not your usual style.
What are you talking about? Read it again. I asked one very specific question in direct response to you. If you want to have a circular conversation, take it up with someone else.
Here is a suggestion… Let’s get the government, including the cops, off our backs and go back to being free and prosperous people who took care of ourselves.
These cameras are just like the patrols in my town, who only seem to protect the shops on the main street. Rarely ever driving thru the neighborhoods. And our neighborhoods are suburban. Not slum town USA, to be avoided. Still, it takes a call to ever see a squad car off the main drag. They patrol the main route thru town, 95% of the time. And the big shopping mall three miles away. I’m betting the UK’s CCTVs are set up to protect their major business districts too. So the crime just happens where it doesn’t matter.