CCTV is a vast waste of money - a quick political fix!

[twinney12]

Newtown
Chester
02 November 2007

The Chester Chronicle
Dear Sir
I am writing to complain about the vast amounts of time, manpower and tax money currently being spent on CCTV in this city and the surrounding council estates. I have reviewed most of the available literature for the past 20-25 years, on the subject of CCTV effectiveness, and can find little, if any, in praise of CCTV being the ‘saviour of our security’.
I did not come across a single academic report which even suggested that CCTV was ‘money well spent’. Indeed, the complete opposite appears to be true – CCTV is huge waste of tax money, but is seen as a ‘quick fix’ and an attractive political solution in the clamour for better safety on our streets. There have been a few successes where criminals are later identified from CCTV footage; but as police and councils usually only hold on to the video surveillance footage for 2 or 3 weeks, in order to reuse the tapes; investigations are often hampered by lack of visual evidence!
From an initial rapturous, and enthusiastic reception in the mid 1980's, the effectiveness of CCTV's use as a weapon to prevent or reduce crime rates in city centres and council housing estates is now discovered to be tiny or non-existent.
The amount of time, money and energy spent by the various councils, the police, and the vested interests that continue to 'talk up' and exaggerate its usefulness is almost a crime in itself!
In a 1996 report to the Scottish Office on the impact of CCTV Jason Ditton, Director of the Scottish Centre for Criminology, argued that the claims of crime reduction [due to the camera surveillance] are little more than fantasy. "All [evaluations and statistics] we have seen so far are wholly unreliable"; The British Journal of Criminology described the statistics as "....post hoc shoestring efforts by the untrained and self interested practitioner. " In short, the crime statistics are without credibility. "
He continued: "One of the features of current surveillance practice is that the cameras are often installed in high-rent commercial areas. Crime may be merely pushed from high value commercial areas into low rent residential areas".
Hundreds of millions of pounds have been wasted on the installation of CCTV cameras across the country, in the last twenty or more years, with little or no reduction in petty crime rates or wanton vandalism.
CCTV does NOT, and has never had, the expected or predicted effects it's fans said would occur, and CCTV does not do what it was intended to do: That is, to prevent crime in urban areas of the country.
The Time Money And Resources Wasted On CCTV Installations, does not justify any of the apparent improvements to the 'quality of life' of those on council estates, or the effectiveness for reducing crime in the inner cities. . . the 'means' do not justify the 'end'!
The ignorant and lazy attitude of councils and businesses and the police for a 'quick fix', and the mad headlong rush to install cameras in almost every urban space in the country, has been a shameful misuse of money and resources!
A more intelligent, practical and realistic approach to solving urban problems would have led to better and more effective remedies being discovered and implemented, and the crime reduction claims being made by CCTV proponents are not convincing.

"What we really have is a myth of reassurance. However, the irony is that people are more afraid of crime than ever." [Ditton et. al.]

Further research for the Home Office, on CCTV effectiveness, concluded in 2005: “Too much time and money has been spent, and continues to be spent, on CCTV as the so-called 'solution to street crime', without justification, and this crazy expenditure on CCTV is now acknowledged as an over-simplistic solution to a complex problem. “[Ditton et. al.]
The ‘over-simplistic solution’ has been looked at again in the most recently published work (August 2007) by Hina Keval, a graduate student working towards her PhD at University College London, [Latest Research http://newtownsaints.co.uk/docs/cctv2.html], and reported on B.B.C’s Radio 4’s ‘Today’ programme yesterday morning (Thursday1st November).
Her work has highlighted underpaid cctv operators, vast amounts of poor quality video images, outdated equipment, poor management of control rooms, operators unfamiliar with the areas under surveillance, and poor and confusing communications between police, shop managers, and councils!
In addition, the logistics of managing such vast amounts of data, and analysing or interpreting the results of many hours of surveillance are proving to be monumental. Hina Keval goes on to confirm the conclusions of the 2005 Home Office Study and confirms the complexity of the problem.
The ineffectiveness of CCTV outlined above, results in a huge drain on money and resources with little return on the investment.
I think that the cheaper and more effective solution is to spend some of the money on better street lighting, and more police and wardens.


Yours sincerely

Tony Swaine



Latest Research [August 2007] http://newtownsaints.co.uk/docs/cctv2.html
Previous Research [1996 - 2005] http://newtownsaints.co.uk/docs/cctv.html

Email:tony.swaine@hotmail.com