Surprise! You not only have to have laws and jails, but you also need police officers to lower your crime rates
Massive investment in CCTV cameras to prevent crime in the UK has failed to have a significant impact, despite billions of pounds spent on the new technology, a senior police officer piloting a new database has warned. Only 3% of street robberies in London were solved using CCTV images, despite the fact that Britain has more security cameras than any other country in Europe.
Use of CCTV images for court evidence has so far been very poor, according to Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville, the officer in charge of the Metropolitan police unit. “CCTV was originally seen as a preventative measure,” Neville told the Security Document World Conference in London. “Billions of pounds has been spent on kit, but no thought has gone into how the police are going to use the images and how they will be used in court. It’s been an utter fiasco: only 3% of crimes were solved by CCTV. There’s no fear of CCTV. Why don’t people fear it? [They think] the cameras are not working.”
More training was needed for officers, he said. Often they do not want to find CCTV images “because it’s hard work”. Sometimes the police did not bother inquiring beyond local councils to find out whether CCTV cameras monitored a particular street incident.
“CCTV operators need feedback. If you call them back, they feel valued and are more helpful. We want to develop a career path for CCTV [police] inquirers.”
“Because it’s hard workâ€, really? Is that the best excuse the guy can offer as to why CCTV images aren’t checked more often?
And that no one wants to call the CCTV managers and that they supposedly have no career path is a reasonable reason as to why the CCTV folks aren’t helpful?
It is more likely that they aren’t helpful because no one in the department has ever been fired for not being helpful.
But despite these two lamest of the lame excuses, this was the stand out line:
If criminals see that CCTV works, they are less likely to commit crimes.
Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville – Metropolitan Police
Wrong, DCI Neville, they are more likely to buy a hooded sweatshirt.
In all seriousness, I do worry that it is something pumped into the water there that makes this guy think he’s rational.
Found via GunPundit and the Schneier on Security blog
“In all seriousness, I do worry that it is something pumped into the water there that makes this guy think he’s rational.”
You have to look at the situation from perspective. The island of Great Britain is smaller than my state (Utah), and has about 60 million people. The only new blood that has gone into the place in the last few hundred years have been Muslims, who keep to themselves. By this time, most of the island is probably inbred worse than any lost hamlet of Appalachia.