[Infowarrior] - Tens of thousands of CCTV cameras, yet 80% of crime unsolved

[Richard Forno]

 Tens of thousands of CCTV cameras, yet 80% of crime unsolved
By Justin Davenport, Evening Standard 19.09.07

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23412867-details/Tens+of+thousand
s+of+CCTV+cameras%2C+yet+80%25+of+crime+unsolved/article.do

London has 10,000 crime-fighting CCTV cameras which cost £200 million,
figures show today.

But an analysis of the publicly funded spy network, which is owned and
controlled by local authorities and Transport for London, has cast doubt on
its ability to help solve crime.

A comparison of the number of cameras in each London borough with the
proportion of crimes solved there found that police are no more likely to
catch offenders in areas with hundreds of cameras than in those with hardly
any.

In fact, four out of five of the boroughs with the most cameras have a
record of solving crime that is below average.

The figures were obtained by the Liberal Democrats on the London Assembly
using the Freedom of Information Act.

Dee Doocey, the Lib-Dems' policing spokeswoman, said: "These figures suggest
there is no link between a high number of CCTV cameras and a better crime
clear-up rate.

"We have estimated that CCTV cameras have cost the taxpayer in the region of
£200million in the last 10 years but it's not entirely clear if some of that
money would not have been better spent on police officers.

"Although CCTV has its place, it is not the only solution in preventing or
detecting crime.

"Too often calls for CCTV cameras come as a knee-jerk reaction. It is time
we engaged in an open debate about the role of cameras in London today."

The figures show:

€ There are now 10,524 CCTV cameras in 32 London boroughs funded with Home
Office grants totalling about £200million.

€ Hackney has the most cameras - 1,484 - and has a better-than-average
clearup rate of 22.2 per cent.

€ Wandsworth has 993 cameras, Tower Hamlets, 824, Greenwich, 747 and
Lewisham 730, but police in all four boroughs fail to reach the average 21
per cent crime clear-up rate for London.

€ By contrast, boroughs such as Kensington and Chelsea, Sutton and Waltham
Forest have fewer than 100 cameras each yet they still have clear-up rates
of around 20 per cent.

€ Police in Sutton have one of the highest clear-ups with 25 per cent.

€ Brent police have the highest clear-up rate, with 25.9 per cent of crimes
solved in 2006-07, even though the borough has only 164 cameras.

The figures appear to confirm earlier studies which have thrown doubt on the
effectiveness of CCTV cameras.

A report by the criminal justice charity Nacro in 2002 concluded that the
money spent on cameras would be better used on street lighting, which has
been shown to cut crime by up to 20 per cent.

Scotland Yard is trying to improve its track record on the use of CCTV and
has set up a special unit which collects and circulates CCTV images of
criminals.

A pilot project is running in Southwark and Lambeth and is expected to be
rolled out across the capital.

The figures only include state-funded cameras.

The true number, once privately run units and CCTV at rail and London
Underground stations are taken into account, will be significantly higher.