Met Officer claims CCTV doesn’t cut crime

Story link: Met Officer claims CCTV doesn’t cut crime by Jan Harris

A senior officer from the Met has raised doubts about the use of CCTV to reduce crime.

Detective Chief Inspector Neville’s comments come at a time when Britain is widely regarded as the surveillance capital of Europe, with an estimated 4.2 million closed circuit television watching its citizens every day.

In fact Britain has just one per cent of the world’s population, but a fifth of its CCTV cameras, causing concern among civil rights groups such as Liberty.

Despite the network of 10,000 cameras in London, CCTV only helps to solve 3% of the city’s crimes, Detective Chief Inspector Neville said at the Security Document World Conference.

CCTV cameras are often deployed for their deterrent effect, but Detective Chief Inspector Neville said that they are often ignored by criminals in the belief that they are not working.

The officer is leading a pilot scheme of a new database which will track and identify offenders using CCTV.

This more scientific approach to the use of surveillance equipment to target criminals, and improved analysis of CCTV footage should help to increase the effectiveness of the technology in fighting crime.

The scheme includes the publication of images of suspects on the Internet.