[Josy]

The UK has 20 percent of the world’s CCTV camera's, over £500 million has been spent installing them and yet research found that less than one crime was solved by every 1,000 cameras.

Do you feel safer with the camera's around you? or do you think the money used should have been spent elsewhere? maybe on more police officers?

Discuss.

[Kizzy]

I would have thought it was more than that, as a target hardening measure they are a visual deterrent too so would say they prevent more crime than they solve maybe?
Not as much as police patrol though..
I understand the civil liberties view, yet as a woman when walking alone I can't help but feel they are a reassuring presence.

[mizzy25]

Well were getting them @ our house, just before new year some bastards tried to smash my partners van window, well they did shatter it, but it didn't smash out. Then the other week the guy across the road woke up to graffiti on his garage door and his tyres slashed, the graffiti said something about a cat killer. Theres virtutally no cats round here and its a nice neighbourhood but with this happening were getting it in. The other bloke across the road actually installs it and theres a few have it already in the street. I think its a good idea.

[michael21]

Originally Posted by mizzy25

Well were getting them @ our house, just before new year some bastards tried to smash my partners van window, well they did shatter it, but it didn't smash out. Then the other week the guy across the road woke up to graffiti on his garage door and his tyres slashed, the graffiti said something about a cat killer. Theres virtutally no cats round here and its a nice neighbourhood but with this happening were getting it in. The other bloke across the road actually installs it and theres a few have it already in the street. I think its a good idea.

i wonder why there no cats around

[thesheriff443]

Originally Posted by mizzy25

Well were getting them @ our house, just before new year some bastards tried to smash my partners van window, well they did shatter it, but it didn't smash out. Then the other week the guy across the road woke up to graffiti on his garage door and his tyres slashed, the graffiti said something about a cat killer. Theres virtutally no cats round here and its a nice neighbourhood but with this happening were getting it in. The other bloke across the road actually installs it and theres a few have it already in the street. I think its a good idea.

he is doing the crime to get work

[Josy]

Originally Posted by michael21

i wonder why there no cats around

Originally Posted by thesheriff443

he is doing the crime to get work

Do either of you have any opinions on the OP of the thread?

[Josy]

Originally Posted by Kizzy

I would have thought it was more than that, as a target hardening measure they are a visual deterrent too so would say they prevent more crime than they solve maybe?
Not as much as police patrol though..
I understand the civil liberties view, yet as a woman when walking alone I can't help but feel they are a reassuring presence.

I used to be the same but when we had our own private CCTV installed we actually had the police at our door asking to look at it when someone was murdered down the street, when we asked them what was wrong with the CCTV cameras on the street they said none of them were facing in the right direction, so that's 4 different camera along one street and they were all facing the wrong way.

Same thing happened again when the shop over the road was vandalised.

Originally Posted by mizzy25

Well were getting them @ our house, just before new year some bastards tried to smash my partners van window, well they did shatter it, but it didn't smash out. Then the other week the guy across the road woke up to graffiti on his garage door and his tyres slashed, the graffiti said something about a cat killer. Theres virtutally no cats round here and its a nice neighbourhood but with this happening were getting it in. The other bloke across the road actually installs it and theres a few have it already in the street. I think its a good idea.

Is that private CCTV that you are installing though or is it the ones the police use?

[thesheriff443]

Originally Posted by Josy

Do either of you have any opinions on the OP of the thread?

general chat would have been good enough for this thread.

cameras can only see crime that is going on in front of them! and then the image is not good enough to use in court.

[RichardG]

Originally Posted by josy

]I used to be the same but when we had our own private CCTV installed we actually had the police at our door asking to look at it when someone was murdered down the street, when we asked them what was wrong with the CCTV cameras on the street they said none of them were facing in the right direction, so that's 4 different camera along one street and they were all facing the wrong way.

Same thing happened again when the shop over the road was vandalised

A few months ago we had a group of teenage boys who would run riot around the streets nearby every weekend, getting stupidly drunk and scratching everyone's cars, chucking bins around and (somehow) one of them even managed to punch their fist through an old mans window. It was a complete shock because it's a very nice neighbourhood and usually very quiet so no one understood why this was going on but the police were absolutely useless, so people started buying private CCTV cameras. One Saturday our neighbours camera caught a group of them kicking in the back of our car causing a huge big dent. The camera caught all of their faces perfectly, but didn't quite catch which person it was who kicked in that specific dent so they were all let off, none got in trouble.

On the plus side none of them have returned since so the cameras were effective in preventing them from causing any more damage but it's incredibly frustrating for none of them to have been punished when they caused many thousands of pounds worth of damage across the neighbourhood. I think the legal system requires changes in that sense. If the camera can't identify the specific person who kicked in our car but can easily identify all of their faces standing around it then punish all of them just for being associated with the crime.

I am in favour of more CCTV cameras for reasons I have said, it's deterred the criminals from returning, but I would be so so much more in favour of them if they actually had any use in prosecuting people.

[Josy]

Originally Posted by RichardG

A few months ago we had a group of teenage boys who would run riot around the streets nearby every weekend, getting stupidly drunk and scratching everyone's cars, chucking bins around and (somehow) one of them even managed to punch their fist through an old mans window. It was a complete shock because it's a very nice neighbourhood and usually very quiet so no one understood why this was going on but the police were absolutely useless, so people started buying private CCTV cameras. One Saturday our neighbours camera caught a group of them kicking in the back of our car causing a huge big dent. The camera caught all of their faces perfectly, but didn't quite catch which person it was who kicked in that specific dent so they were all let off, none got in trouble.

On the plus side none of them have returned since so the cameras were effective in preventing them from causing any more damage but it's incredibly frustrating for none of them to have been punished when they caused many thousands of pounds worth of damage across the neighbourhood. I think the legal system requires changes in that sense. If the camera can't identify the specific person who kicked in our car but can easily identify all of their faces standing around it then punish all of them just for being associated with the crime.

I am in favour of more CCTV cameras for reasons I have said, it's deterred the criminals from returning, but I would be so so much more in favour of them if they actually had any use in prosecuting people.

I agree with that.

I also think if they were operated better it would help with a lot of crime like in the case I posted above having 4 cameras along a straight road there shouldn't really be any blind spots at any point IMO.

[joeysteele]

I feel they have some merit but overall I also think criminals are now aware of them and also where and what they can record so work round them.

I have lost count of the times I have been told that an incident was on cctv but was inconclusive or that although the cameras were on they were not recording anything so it was down to who and if anyone was watching.

[Kizzy]

Originally Posted by Josy

I used to be the same but when we had our own private CCTV installed we actually had the police at our door asking to look at it when someone was murdered down the street, when we asked them what was wrong with the CCTV cameras on the street they said none of them were facing in the right direction, so that's 4 different camera along one street and they were all facing the wrong way.

Same thing happened again when the shop over the road was vandalised.

Hmmm, makes you think that due to the cuts they've decide to leave some areas unmonitored?.... worryingly I agree

[InOne]

I think it's good if a violent crime happens in a town centre they can track them through CCTV but then again if there's no police to respond they'd get away anyway so a bit rubbish. From the docs I've seen it's used to stop people who are banned from city centres getting in a lot. Shoplifters etc.

[Z]

They'd be better off replacing them with a better technology seeing as we have amazing cameras used for cinematic purposes in this day and age, why not use them instead of CCTV? CCTV doesn't work very well; I'm sure the reason it hasn't been upgraded is because of cost but then I would have thought updating the technology would be worth it.

[Z]

Also I'm forever looking CCTV cameras dead on because I'm paranoid about being the victim of a crime (you know, past experiences and all that ) and I figure looking at the camera so they can positively identify me is the only thing I can really do if I reckon I'm being threatened and it's out of my control.

[King Gizzard]

I was just about to say ''as long as they're not in my house I don't care'' but that would be kind of hypocritical given my views on censorship of the internet..but kind of not...I don't really care about CCTV cameras

[Vicky.]

CCTV is a complete waste of time from my experience.

Gavs car got nicked last year (before he even passed his test, was a birthday gift from his dad ) and there were only two places the car could have left the street, both are supposed to be cctv protected. Yet oddly enough, both the cameras were apparently facing the opposite direction, and there was NO footage of the busy high street at that time either

Of course it doesn't work, otherwise we'd have politicians on TV on a weekly basis bragging about how they were reducing crime. It's also pathetic that we just accept it as though it's normal. We don't have lower crime rates than the rest of the world, we don't solve crime at higher rates than the rest of the world, so it can't be the case that those 2 things happen, yet CCTV works.

[HD]

We have CCTV cameras that shout at you in town (obv it's not the actual camera).

I do feel more safe knowing Big Brother's watching.

[lostalex]

I personally love CCTV, I wish we had more of it in my city. It's usually just straight men that don't like CCTV, cause it's mostly straight men committing most crimes.

Personally I want more CCTV, and I want more policing. I want more cops, and more cameras in my city. That's my personal opinion.

I don't understand people who feel it's an invasion of privacy. You are in a public place, so you should be acting like a civilized adult in public, period. How does having a camera watching you in a public place change that at all?

Having more cameras and more police definitely benefits minorities like gays and women/. It's only people who are up to no good, who think they can act like abusive assholes, that have a problem with it.

[lostalex]

Originally Posted by Jesus.

Of course it doesn't work, otherwise we'd have politicians on TV on a weekly basis bragging about how they were reducing crime. It's also pathetic that we just accept it as though it's normal. We don't have lower crime rates than the rest of the world, we don't solve crime at higher rates than the rest of the world, so it can't be the case that those 2 things happen, yet CCTV works.

that's because the british justice system is ****ed in other ways, you don't put assholes in jail where they should be, instead you have a system that let's anti-social criminals off the hook, and says "if we just go lenient on them, they'll get better". You take them off the street for one night, and then put them back out on the streets the next day, so of course the crime rates don't go down, you just give them a bed to sleep in for the night and put them back out on the streets to do it the next week and the next over and over again. Take them off the streets and you'd see a drastic reduction in crime.

It's a cultural thing in Britain, where being anti-social and abusive is seen as "cool" and masculine. there is something very wrong with British culture that being a criminal is seen as "cool" and "punk" and anti-establishment.

Originally Posted by lostalex

that's because the british justice system is ****ed in other ways, you don't put assholes in jail where they should be, instead you have a system that let's anti-social criminals off the hook, and says "if we just go lenient on them, they'll get better". You take them off the street for one night, and then put them back out on the streets the next day, so of course the crime rates don't go down, you just give them a bed to sleep in for the night and put them back out on the streets to do it the next week and the next over and over again. Take them off the streets and you'd see a drastic reduction in crime.

It's a cultural thing in Britain, where being anti-social and abusive is seen as "cool" and masculine. there is something very wrong with British culture that being a criminal is seen as "cool" and "punk" and anti-establishment.

The fact we prosecute would show that crimes are being solved, so if we're not solving/preventing them at higher rates than the rest of the world, what exactly are CCTV cameras doing?

So how we treat our criminals is a separate argument when considering CCTV actually works, and it doesn't.

I'm a straight male, but if you saw me, you'd never for one second think I was a trouble maker, and I don't want them removed to aid crime, it's about freedom and civil liberties. I'd have thought we'd have had similar thoughts on that front.

[user104658]

Waste of time and money - the vast majority of them are not turned on / not recording. A police officer stated this to me himself. A man collapsed outside my place of work and we saw through the window, two little scumbags (well known locally) bend down as if to help him up - then instead, snatch his wallet out of his inside pocket and run off. We called the police and they came in, were asking if people would be willing to give evidence etc... I work in the center of town and there's a large pole with CCTV cameras on it mounted literally 20 metres (if that) from where the incident took place and one camera points right at the front of our building. So I asked; "Surely you'll be able to get everything you need from the CCTV?".

Police officer himself said; "We'll request footage but the truth is they're hardly ever powered on, and when they are on they're often not recording."

Very useful. Sigh.