CCTV cameras: If they do not stop crime or catch criminals, what are they for?

August 24, 2009 by Infowars Ireland

www.telegraph.co.uk

Telegraph View: One estimate puts the total number of CCTV cameras in Britain at 4.2 million, or one for every 14 people. If they do not stop crime or catch criminals, what are they for?

For foreign visitors to Britain, and especially London, abiding memories of the trip have usually centred on historic architecture, galleries and parks. Now, tourists also take home with them the memory of a forest of CCTV cameras that watched their every move. Britain has far and away the largest number of surveillance cameras in the world. It is not known for certain how many there are, although one estimate puts the total at 4.2 million, or one for every 14 people, with one million in the capital alone. Nobody can deny that this involves snooping on people in a way that would once have been unacceptable — and which would still be intolerable in countries with recent memories of totalitarian regimes. But it is justified by its advocates on crime-fighting grounds, and most people instinctively feel more secure if their neighbourhood is watched over by CCTV.

Yet there is plenty of evidence that people are not safer because of the presence of CCTV: studies have argued convincingly that money is better invested in improved street lighting and more uniformed police patrols. If the efficacy of cameras as a crime prevention tool is at least questionable, they must, surely, be useful in helping to apprehend crooks? It turns out that they do not fulfil even that basic function. Det Chief Inspector Mike Neville of Scotland Yard says that in London just one crime is solved a year by every 1,000 CCTV cameras. CCTV played a role in capturing just eight out of 269 suspected robbers across London in one month, many of whom might have thought twice about committing a crime had there been a policeman about. In recent years, the Government has spent £500 million on surveillance cameras. If they do not stop crime or catch criminals, what are they for? To make sure we buy the correct light bulbs, perhaps?