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has CCTV really helped in the UK

Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
just an odd one really, like 10-15 years ago, they were like 'oh this will improve detection rates and prevent crime'

have they in your opinion, provide statistics if you feel free :)

Comments

  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I don't know about detection rates or detterents, but surely they've helped in convictions.
  • SkiveSkive Posts: 15,282 Skive's The Limit
    I got convicted on evidence from CCTV. :mad:
    Weekender Offender 
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Skive wrote:
    I got convicted on evidence from CCTV. :mad:

    So they could clearly see you and the donkey then ? :D
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Pretty much every camera around Leeds when a crime has been committed and "caught" by a camera has ended up been a dummy camera for show only.
  • SkiveSkive Posts: 15,282 Skive's The Limit
    RubberSkin wrote:
    So they could clearly see you and the donkey then ? :D

    :D

    The camera I was caught on was actually a private cam installed on the front of the house owned by the group we got fighting with. How unlucky is that? How many council homes have CCTV installed? :yeees:

    Still I done it, and I suffered.
    Weekender Offender 
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    They act as a deterrent for some crime, usually robbery, but they certainly help catch people afterwards. Violent drunks don't tend to care about the CCTV whilst they're having a ruck, but it does help tidy everything up afterwards.

    There aren't that many dummy cameras, but they don't pick up everything, and the tapes are easily damaged.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Kermit wrote:
    They are certainly very easily damaged when you get mugged in the park by 15 young Pakistani men, funnily enough, but they're all working fine when its the other way around.

    Any evidence to back that one up, Kermit?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    LucieLu wrote:
    Any evidence to back that one up, Kermit?

    That old chestnut "personal experience".

    Not that I'm bitter about it or anything.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I very much doubt there is an agenda at work to get Asians off the hook Kermit.

    In fact, given the history of incidents between the authorities and minorities, if any dodgy scheming was taking place at all it'd be far more likely to be to favour whites & prejudice non-whites. The CCTV overlooking the Stephen Lawrence memorial comes to mind.

    But chances are the cameras were simply not working (not an uncommon ocurrence by any means) in your case, and in most others. The only time when I'm really prepared to believe cameras have been falsely said to be out of order is if a copper is in the spotlight.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    It depends which authority, and which camera.

    The CCTV in question was owned and operated by City of Bradford Metropolitan Council, which just happens to have a large Pakistani powerbase at its heart.

    All I can say is that I thought it was a bit coincidental that the cameras weren't working (when the police asked for the tape, they were told it had been "lost") when it happened to us, but they were working the day before when it happened to a Pakistani lad with white attackers.

    But obviously I can't prove it. Just a hunch I get.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I see what you mean, and it is certainly supicious.

    I thought CCTV cameras were run by the police...
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I thought CCTV was run by private security companies on the behalf of police or council?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    It was in a city park, which means it was run by the council. Whether they did it or contracted it out I don't know.

    Sorry about the derail.

    I think CCTV does help, and it doesn't always just help the prosecution of people, it can and has helped people prove their innocence. But its not the magical thing its portrayed to be.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    cctv has fueled street crime in the uk.
    if your skint and hungry it is almost impossible to nick a chicken from the shop or a tin of beans or three.
    burglary is well down cos of double glazing and electronics.
    car crime as in nicking the radio is down cos they is harder to nick and flog.
    but ...punch some geezer in the head and take his phone in the street with a nice hat or hood on ...not only dead easy but ...THE ...easiest crime left for the desperate.
    cctv is why ...street crime and violebnt crime are on the up and up.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    cctv has fueled street crime in the uk.
    if your skint and hungry it is almost impossible to nick a chicken from the shop or a tin of beans or three.
    burglary is well down cos of double glazing and electronics.
    car crime as in nicking the radio is down cos they is harder to nick and flog.
    but ...punch some geezer in the head and take his phone in the street with a nice hat or hood on ...not only dead easy but ...THE ...easiest crime left for the desperate.
    cctv is why ...street crime and violebnt crime are on the up and up.


    Very good point Im sure theres some crimes that are so caused, but I think thats only a small reason for the rise in violent crime.

    A better explanation (but still only a small part) is that these days the value of electronic items people carry round with them is much higher than it used to be.
    In a lot of cases higher than the value of easly stolen items from houses DVD players etc
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    It has worked well but personally I don't like the idea of some stranger in a room monitoring what I'm doing. Personal freedom and all that jazz!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    just an odd one really, like 10-15 years ago, they were like 'oh this will improve detection rates and prevent crime'

    have they in your opinion, provide statistics if you feel free :)

    Check this out

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=405477&in_page_id=1770

    cool idea I think - it could help break up a few fights before they go any further and if someone on a loudspeaker can shout out the police are ont heir way and have been called you save a few minutes extra maybe 5 to 10 minutes before the polic arrive in which someone could have been stabbed, beaten up, bottles, etc.

    I wouldn't want to see a system like this everywhere but for streets with nightclubs, etc, I think it would help a lot of people to think twice before starting a fight for instance.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    sounds very orwellian to me, why don't we just have plasmas with talking heads on every corner telling us what to do and how to behave.......
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I wouldn't want to see a system like this everywhere but for streets with nightclubs, etc, I think it would help a lot of people to think twice before starting a fight for instance.
    It'd work for about five minutes, before everyone got used to them, and the shock value would be gone.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    You already have that system on most public transport, Metro Contol on the Newcastle Underground aren't shy at yelling at people for smoking or being anti-social. Even now it works when they shout at that bloke on platform 2, and everyone looks and laughs.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Forget CCTV, let's invest in Stocks and Rotten Fuit
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Personally I think it probably has helped. Plus it helped catch the bloke that tried to sabotage the towns christmas lights a couple of years ago. Although, they must be hidden pretty well cause I've never seen one around here. :chin:
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    The CCTV cameras on our own high street are fake and the trouble is everyone knows it.
  • SkiveSkive Posts: 15,282 Skive's The Limit
    Quite a few of my locals are trying to get CCTV in the village for fuck sake. It doesn't help when little twats like this go and do stupid things in the neighbouring village.
    http://www.thisissalisbury.co.uk/display.var.942356.0.bbgun_vandals_wreak_mayhem.php
    Weekender Offender 
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    The UK has the most amount of CCTV Cameras per head of population in the world - I think if you can have a camera on the enterance of a nightclub for instance and it shows which person in a fight threw the first punch then it's a good thing for the courts to be able to see. Maybe it helps prove the bouncer was heavy handed?

    The camera in a place I worked in once showed how a guy broke into the offices using a stick through a letter box and then stole loads of laptops - if we hadn't had that evidence then suspision may have fallen on innocent people like myself who worked in the offices late most nights.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I think I read somewhere that there's more CCTV's in Crowdyn than New York City, speaks for itself.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I am all for CCTV... They'll make crime figures go up probably but only because more people are caught. I feel safer in CCTV areas...

    If you've nothing to hide then there should be no problem... So far.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I was in Berlin in January with the missus. One night we went out drinking and started chatting to a young lad, who can't have been older than about 25. He still identified as an East German and as an East Berliner, even though he can't have been older than 8 when the wall came down. Anyway, when we told him we were from London, he said "aaaah, yes. I have heard it is a very dangerous place, there are cameras everywhere. I wouldn't like cameras everywhere".
    What struck me was that here was a lad who identified as East German, a country where the Stasi had files on everyone and you could be taken away by the police for saying the wrong thing. However he was concerned about the cameras everywhere in London!

    There's a lesson in there somewhere. Probably.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I watched a documentary about this a few months ago. You'd be surprised how helpful CCTV has been in and around cities, especially at the weekend when the pubs get out - the people at the control room would radio to the police and in a matter of minutes the police were on the scene and able to control the situation. It also gives the armed forces some sort of idea of what they're up against, because when people phone their emergency number and ask for police they're usually quite inadequate about the details.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    There was a report on local news, about some random town, where they've now attached speakers to about 5 cameras in the town centre to boom out orders ' Oi you, yeah you who just dropped the coke can. Pick it up and put it in the bin. ' :D
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