Issue - meetings

To receive a presentation from the Panel’s external advisers on the effective use of CCTV for community safety purposes.

The Panel received a presntation from Dr. Tim Pascoe from PRCI about the use of CCTV for community safety purposes.  PRCI were a “spin out” company from the University of Leicester and specialised in looking at issues concerned with community safety and, in particular, CCTV.   They could provide a range of services including research, consultancy, evaluation and training and facilitation.

They were currently assisting the Council and the Safer Communities Partnership by reviewing the operation of CCTV systems within the Borough and this included providing support for the scrutiny review on the issue.

Where CCTV systems had been successful, they had clear objectives and sustainable strategies.  CCTV as a crime prevention measure appeared to have a life cycle.  It was necessary to renew and update systems from time to time and to market them so that the public remained aware of their existence otherwise deterrent value would be lost.  CCTV had greater preventative effects on some types of crimes, such as car park crime, than others.  It had little effect in deterring disorder but could be effective in assisting an effective response to it.  It was most beneficial when used in conjunction with other crime reduction measures and tailored to the local setting.  It did not always have to be used to just deal with the “hard” issues – it could also be used for finding lost children, helping people find their cars and monitoring traffic.

There was clear evidence that CCTV made people feel safer and that they had considerable faith in its deterrence value.  There were now over 4 million cameras in operation within the UK and their numbers had trebled within the last 3 years.  The National Evaluation of CCTV had shown that CCTV could work but in a lot of cases, it did not work as well as it could. 

Many projects suffered from not having clear objectives.  The existence of funding for CCTV had created pressure to bid for it during its early years, often in the absence of reliable intelligence indicating where CCTV would be likely to have the most effect.  Schemes needed to be properly managed and this required:

·        Access to technical expertise

·        The full engagement of end-users

·        The appointment of a suitable project manager

·        Independence.

There was a shortage of suitably qualified people to manage schemes.  Independence was of particular importance as there could often be tensions between partners involved in schemes. 

As a result of the lack of guidance on how many cameras to bid for, the number and density of cameras varied widely between schemes. Too little coverage tended to prevent efforts to track offenders for detective and evidential purposes.  However, systems with a high density of cameras did not necessarily produce a greater reduction in crime.  Camera coverage was linked to camera positioning and needed to take account of the nature of the area to be monitored and the objectives of the CCTV system

Police intelligence was invaluable when positioning decisions were taken, as was the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 12