Surveillance Cameras In London Not Very Effective At Solving Crime
from the seems-like-a-problem dept
Defenders of installing surveillance cameras everywhere often insist that they're necessary and useful in stopping and solving crime. Yet, even that's being called into serious question, as a study of London's widespread use of CCTV cameras, found that for every 1,000 cameras installed, only one crime has been solved. On top of that, when faced with a crime, the CCTV cameras are rarely that useful. The report found that CCTV cameras were used to catch just 8 out of 269 suspected robbers. And these cameras aren't cheap to install or maintain, making some begin to question if anti-crime budgets couldn't be spent more wisely.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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If such measures are deemed necessary in order to thwart criminal activity, then I have no desire to ever be there.
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Not new news
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Cameras
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Thought not...
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Less than two weeks ago Salt Lake City reported a 50% drop in police roll-outs in a specific location (pioneer park) that had cameras installed. Philly reported a 37% drop in crime rates in 2007 after introducing cameras, Balitmore 17%, NYC 36% in certain locations, and the list goes on and on.
It is easy to make an argument that these crime rate declines were due to displacement of the activities in question and not direct deterrence, given the limited amount of data available (secondary effects of the cameras really, and reliable crime data beyond simple event tracking is hard to get for obvious reasons) but to suggest that the crime rate is not impacted by these devices shows either stunning ignorance or that you are just too damn lazy to use Google.
How about this question: care to cite any studies or reported instances of CCTV being used to infringe upon someone's privacy beyond that which is possible without using such a system?
Thought not...
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You didn't wait very long for reply (I guess you always win that way). There are plenty of web sites devoted to documenting abuse of CCTV systems. This is one of the better ones.
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Surveillance of public areas isn't a crime.
It isn't invasion of privacy. People have the right to live without crime.
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Question of efficacy or question of privacy?
While just 3% of robbery suspects were caught using the cameras, you failed to mention that 70% of murder investigations were solved using the cameras. I would say that seems to justify the cameras outright, while completely disregarding any other crimes solved. How many of those murder investigations would not have been solved without the help of the cameras?
If your real concern is privacy than you should state it. But as it stands now I think that the cameras are a mixed bag of privacy and crime solving tool and neither should be taken lightly.
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Re: Question of efficacy or question of privacy?
The crime in the British capital is at a ten-year low, according to the latest figures released by the London Police. The statistics reveal that crime in London is continuing to fall with clear reductions in knife and gun crime, robbery, and hate crime. Overall crime has fallen for the sixth consecutive year and is now at the lowest level for ten years.
http://www.geo.tv/1-22-2009/33267.htm
Sort of sucks when reality gets in the way of a good rant.
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Re: Re: Question of efficacy or question of privacy?
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Camera Overlords
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in the system of transmission and recording
the data generated by all those cameras.
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If the cameras are ineffective there is no privacy risk.
You can argue one side of the fundamental capabilities and risks of the technology or the other, but you do not get to pick and choose your side depending on what deceptive argument you intend on making.
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The crime in the British capital is at a ten-year low, according to the latest figures released by the London Police. The statistics reveal that crime in London is continuing to fall with clear reductions in knife and gun crime, robbery, and hate crime. Overall crime has fallen for the sixth consecutive year and is now at the lowest level for ten years.
http://www.geo.tv/1-22-2009/33267.htm
Sort of sucks when reality gets in the way of a good rant."
Unfortunately there have been some other surveys and some (admittedly anecdotal) evidence that the crime figures in London are being massaged. Apparently large swathes of the population just don't bother to report various crimes because they either a) don't trust the police b) don't think anything useful would come of it c) plan on their own revenge.
I'll see if I can track down one of these studies so that I don't just sound like a crank.
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Cameras in use
Sometimes the camera itself doesn't get a shot, but it shows them going into a store whose cameras do give a good shot.
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wow
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interesting
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not just a single case
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