[Infowarrior] - CCTV boom has failed to slash crime, say police

Tue May 6 20:13:30 UTC 2008

CCTV boom has failed to slash crime, say police

     * Owen Bowcott
     * The Guardian,
     * Tuesday May 6 2008
     * Article history

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/may/06/ukcrime1/print

This article appeared in the Guardian on Tuesday May 06 2008 on p1 of  
the Top stories section. It was last updated at 13:35 on May 06 2008.

Massive investment in CCTV cameras to prevent crime in the UK has  
failed to have a significant impact, despite billions of pounds spent  
on the new technology, a senior police officer piloting a new database  
has warned. Only 3% of street robberies in London were solved using  
CCTV images, despite the fact that Britain has more security cameras  
than any other country in Europe.

The warning comes from the head of the Visual Images, Identifications  
and Detections Office (Viido) at New Scotland Yard as the force  
launches a series of initiatives to try to boost conviction rates  
using CCTV evidence. They include:

· A new database of images which is expected to use technology  
developed by the sports advertising industry to track and identify  
offenders.

· Putting images of suspects in muggings, rape and robbery cases out  
on the internet from next month.

· Building a national CCTV database, incorporating pictures of  
convicted offenders as well as unidentified suspects. The plans for  
this have been drawn up, but are on hold while the technology required  
to carry out automated searches is refined.

Link to this audio
Owen Bowcott on why CCTV is catching few criminals
Use of CCTV images for court evidence has so far been very poor,  
according to Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville, the officer in  
charge of the Metropolitan police unit. "CCTV was originally seen as a  
preventative measure," Neville told the Security Document World  
Conference in London. "Billions of pounds has been spent on kit, but  
no thought has gone into how the police are going to use the images  
and how they will be used in court. It's been an utter fiasco: only 3%  
of crimes were solved by CCTV. There's no fear of CCTV. Why don't  
people fear it? [They think] the cameras are not working."

More training was needed for officers, he said. Often they do not want  
to find CCTV images "because it's hard work". Sometimes the police did  
not bother inquiring beyond local councils to find out whether CCTV  
cameras monitored a particular street incident.

"CCTV operators need feedback. If you call them back, they feel valued  
and are more helpful. We want to develop a career path for CCTV  
[police] inquirers."

The Viido unit is beginning to establish a London-wide database of  
images of suspects that are cross-referenced by written descriptions.  
Interest in the technology has been enhanced by recent police work, in  
which officers back-tracked through video tapes to pick out terrorist  
suspects. In districts where the Viido scheme is working, CCTV is now  
helping police in 15-20% of street robberies.

"We are [beginning] to collate images from across London," Neville  
said. "This has got to be balanced against any Big Brother concerns,  
with safeguards. The images are from thefts, robberies and more  
serious crimes. Possibly the [database] could be national in future."

The unit is now investigating whether it can use software - developed  
to track advertising during televised football games - to follow  
distinctive brand logos on the clothing of unidentified suspects.  
"Sometimes you are looking for a picture, for example, of someone with  
a red top and a green dragon on it," he explained. "That technology  
could be used to track logos." By back-tracking, officers have often  
found earlier pictures, for example, of suspects with their hoods  
down, in which they can be identified.

"We are also going to start putting out [pictures] on the internet, on  
the Met police website, asking 'who is this guy?'. If criminals see  
that CCTV works they are less likely to commit crimes."

Cheshire deputy chief constable Graham Gerrard, who chairs the CCTV  
working group of the Association of Chief Police Officers, told the  
Guardian, that it made no sense to have a national DNA and fingerprint  
database, but to have to approach 43 separate forces for images of  
suspects and offenders. A scheme called the Facial Identification  
National Database (Find), which began collecting offenders' images  
from their prison pictures and elsewhere, has been put on hold.

He said that there were discussions with biometric companies "on a  
regular basis" about developing the technology to search digitised  
databases and match suspects' images with known offenders. "Sometimes  
when they put their [equipment] in operational practice, it's not as  
wonderful as they said it would be, " he said. "I suspect [Find] has  
been put on hold until the technology matures. Before you can digitise  
every offender's image you have to make sure the lighting is right and  
it's a good picture. It's a major project. We are still some way from  
a national database. There are still ethical and technical issues to  
consider."

Asked about the development of a CCTV database, the office of the UK's  
information commissioner, Richard Thomas, said: "CCTV can play an  
important role in helping to prevent and detect crime. However we  
would expect adequate safeguards to be put in place to ensure the  
images are only used for crime detection purposes, stored securely and  
that access to images is restricted to authorised individuals. We  
would have concerns if CCTV images of individuals going about their  
daily lives were retained as part of the initiative."

The charity Victim's Voice, which supports relatives of those who have  
been murdered, said it supported more effective use of CCTV systems.  
"Our view is that anything that helps get criminals off the street and  
prevents crime is good," said Ed Usher, one of the organisation's  
trustees. "If handled properly it can be a superb preventative tool."

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       This article appeared in the Guardian on Tuesday May 06 2008 on  
p1 of the Top stories section. It was last updated at 13:35 on May 06  
2008.

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