A survey published today by “advanced surveillance solutions” company Synetic has claimed that following this summer’s riots, public attitudes towards CCTV have warmed and people want to see more cameras on the streets.
This is hardly surprising. As the police this week acknowledged, their response to the riots was fundamentally flawed by a lack of officers. As a result, lawlessness was allowed to spread and a huge amount of criminality and destruction was inflicted on the streets of London, Birmingham and Manchester. And as a result, crimes are going unsolved as officers sift through an estimated 120,000 hours of footage.
One of the headline findings highlights the real motive behind the survey: seven in 10 would be worried if their local council reduced CCTV coverage.
No consideration of what else the resources could be better spent on. No consideration if they actually solved crime. No consideration of privacy. Just don’t spend less on CCTV.
Britain has one per cent of the world’s population but around 20 per cent of its CCTV cameras – roughly one for every 14 people. After the riots, CCTV images have been useful in bringing some of the rioters to justice. However, the most hardcore elements took steps to mitigate against the risk of identification, using high-tech techniques like hoods and scarves. Furthermore, some images (as is often the case) were of insufficient quality to identify suspects, and within the first 24 hours the photograph of an innocent shop owner protecting his business had been posted for thousands of people to see online – with him accused of rioting.
The riots finally laid bare the myth that CCTV deters crime. As the Met’s own figures show, for every 1,000 cameras less than 1 crime is solved. And to solve that crime has cost in the order of £20,000 for surveillance equipment. Surveys like this are a great way for a PR to get their client coverage without ever engaging on the substantive issues. You write the answers, then set the questions.
Big Brother Watch will keep on exposing CCTV for the intrusive, indiscriminate and inefficient tool that it is. But we’ll use facts, not marketing bumph, to make our case.