Thread: Tens of thousands of CCTV cameras, yet 80% of crime unsolve

Tens of thousands of CCTV cameras, yet 80% of crime unsolved

Justin Davenport
London Evening Standard
Thursday September 20, 2007

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.

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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.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/

they have national Id cards, cameras everywhere and still cannot solve crimes....I guess they need a DNA database next.

Originally Posted by jp_48504

they have national Id cards, cameras everywhere and still cannot solve crimes....I guess they need a DNA database next.

They don't have national id cards yet.

JP 48504 wrote

they have national Id cards, cameras everywhere and still cannot solve crimes....I guess they need a DNA database next.

They'll never get it throught their thick skulls that the EU is not working.

Originally Posted by Rockfish

JP 48504 wrote

they have national Id cards, cameras everywhere and still cannot solve crimes....I guess they need a DNA database next.

They'll never get it throught their thick skulls that the EU is not working.

The citizens of the UK are very anti-EU.

Originally Posted by NoIllegalsAllowed

Originally Posted by jp_48504

they have national Id cards, cameras everywhere and still cannot solve crimes....I guess they need a DNA database next.

They don't have national id cards yet.

ID cards

ID cards will provide legal UK residents, including foreign nationals, with an easy and secure way of proving who they are.

ID cards will be linked to their owners by unique biometric identifiers (for example, fingerprints), which mean we will have a much stronger way of protecting people's identities. Background checks will ensure that claimed identities are real and not stolen, and will prevent criminals using multiple identities.

The exact format of an ID card isn’t yet decided but it’s likely that it will be a credit card-sized plastic card featuring the holder’s photograph and a computer chip storing basic personal information.
Who’ll be eligible for an ID card?

You will be eligible for an ID card if you are:

*
UK resident for three months or more
*
over the age of 16

When will ID cards be introduced?

Our decision to introduce a National Identity Scheme was announced in the Queen's Speech on 17 May 2005. The Identity Cards Act received royal assent, becoming law, on 30 March 2006.

We will introduce biometric residence permits for foreign nationals in 2008 and we expect the first ID cards to be issued to British citizens in 2009.

More detailed information about ID cards

For more detailed information on the plans to introduce identity cards, visit the Identity and Passport Service's website:

www.ips.gov.uk

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/passports- ... /id-cards/