Would You Feel Safer Getting Mugged on Camera?

Perhaps this is unsurprising, his new job remit is rectifying this situation. He is now responsible for more effective use of cameras. As the Head of the Metropolitan Police 'Visual Images, Identifications and Detections Office' (or Viido) he has much to gain from talking down the current practices, so that he can triumph his successes if he improves on the current situation a little.

Other sources are less sceptical about the success of cameras. For example Ken Pease, a respected criminologist at the Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science, (at University College London) who has undertaken research into CCTV was cited by the BBC as suggesting that 'If you look at the data, and I have done some of the research myself, they [CCTV camera's] do have an effect'

Yet before we simply dismiss the prospect of criticising CCTV, the time may be right to discuss the policy of commissioning cameras to solve our crime problem. As the Neville highlighted today, 'Billions of pounds have been spent on kit' and for me, the real scandal here is that fact.

For me the fact that the money, spent on an ill effective placebo, has received so little comment is frustrating. CCTV has been commissioned at an alarming rate because it is publicly popular even though it is woefully ineffective. The popularity of CCTV has meant that local authorities have overlooked any real discussion of its merits and simply regarded it as a panacea. Yet, most of the time CCTV is snake oil. Now we unlike our European counterparts are captured on CCTV 300 times a day. Yet still it seems we are no safer.

One of the problems with CCTV as a crime prevention method is that it assumes that as human beings we are rational and calculating, and therefore, on seeing a camera, people will be unlikely to offend or committ a crime. The problem is that if offenders are not rational and calculating because they are not thinking that clearly (say because their need for money for drugs, or the effect of copious amounts of alcohol overrides logical calculation) that the whole logic of the camera falls down.

In contrast, if the offender is sober, rational and calculating (as those who have traditionally supported CCTV always held them to be) then we also have to acknowledge that they are more than capable of concealing their identity under a scarf or baseball cap and hiding away their face, taking necessary steps to avoid detection, or simply going somewhere there are no cameras. Football hooligans have been doing both for over a decade, yet seemingly only now are law enforcement agencies starting to admit it. When people do such things, they are not that easy to catch, hence the 3% figure relating to London street robberies.

We, the public (or more specifically our government and our local authorities on our behalf) seem to have an unquestioning and positive view of CCTV. Masses of cameras have been commissioned because; it seems they make people feel safe. While other European countries were thinking differently, concerned with civil liberties, we created a panoptic society that is all seeing, but still so blind to the real problems that contribute to crime. The problem, for me, extends far beyond that of being simply about discussing more effective use of CCTV. For me the CCTV issue is a symptom of a more substantial problem, rather than the problem in its own right. that is the problem of how we view crime prevention.

What we should be doing is discussing the policy agenda that has been allowed to drive our criminal justice system. CCTV is a symptom of the systemic failure of our crime control policies and our societal over-reliance on woefully inadequate crime prevention, for if we look at anywhere CCTV is used, almost invariably the underpinning rational will include crime prevention.

In our society today, in the minds of the majority (be it the police, politicians or public) it seems that 'crime prevention' equates immediately with physical features that are underpinned by some form of physical presence. It is about locks and the much talked of 'police on the streets', it is about bars and barriers, and it is about CCTV cameras.

Of course the real problem is that such a view is spectacularly naïve. Real crime prevention, it seems to me, is about none of these things. It is about education and opportunity. It is about giving young people positive things to do and positive role models. It is about responsible parenting, creating self esteem, ingraining the idea that individuals can amount to something and encouraging people to take responsibility for themselves. It is about having a job, being able to take a pride in oneself and ones community, forming attachments and bonds with others.

These things prevent crime in a manner that a CCTV camera could never emulate. Of course we should use other means of preventing crime, the locks and bars, the bolts, police on the streets and in some cases CCTV cameras all have a place. But the real scandal that Mike Neville should be highlighting is that we spent billions on cameras rather than more effective means of preventing crime. Would you really feel safer getting mugged on camera?