Author:Tony Swaine B.A. (Hons) M.Sc.

Chester 3rd June 2007

C.C.T.V. and The Myth of Reassurance

(Brief) Synopsis Of Research 1990-2006

Including Work Carried Out For the Home Office

By Martin Gill and Angela Spriggs "Assessing The Impact Of CCTV"

For The Research, Development and Statistics Directorate

Published February 2005

Read The Latest Research:August 2007

Money Wasted On CCTV | Effectiveness Of CCTV | CCTV pushes crime elsewhere |

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Preamble

In a report to the Scottish Office on the impact of CCTV,[Home Office Report 2005
see FOOTNOTES:] Jason Ditton, Director of the Scottish Centre for Criminology,
argued that the claims of crime reduction [due to the camera surveillance] are
little more than fantasy. "All [evaluations and statistics] we have seen so far
are wholly unreliable"; The British Journal of Criminology described the
statistics as "....post hoc shoestring efforts by the untrained and self
interested practitioner. " In short, the crime statistics are without credibility.
"

He continues: "The crime statistics rarely, if ever, reflect the hypothesis that
CCTV merely displaces criminal activity to areas outside the range of the cameras.
One of the features of current surveillance practice is that the cameras are often
installed in high-rent commercial areas. Crime may be merely pushed from high
value commercial areas into low rent residential areas".

Hundreds of millions of pounds have been wasted on the installation of CCTV

cameras across the country, in the last twenty or more years, with little or no
reduction in petty crime rates or wanton vandalism.

CCTV does NOT, and has never had, the expected or predicted effects it's fans said
would occur, and CCTV does not do what it was intended to do: That is, to prevent
crime in urban areas of the country.

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The Time Money And Resources Wasted On CCTV Installations, does not justify any of
the apparent improvements to the 'quality of life' of those on council estates, or
the effectiveness for reducing crime in the inner cities. . . the 'means' do not
justify the 'end'!

What follows is a more sober and considered assessment conducted for those who
care to keep themselves informed by the current facts, on the effectiveness of
CCTV surveillance.

The ignorant and lazy attitude of councils and businesses and the police for a
'quick fix', and the mad headlong rush to install cameras in almost every urban
space in the country, has been a shameful misuse of money and resources! A more
intelligent, practical and realistic approach to solving urban problems would have
led to better and more effective remedies being discovered and implemented, and
the crime reduction claims being made by CCTV proponents are not convincing.

"What we really have is a myth of reassurance. However, the irony is that people
are more afraid of crime than ever." [Ditton et. al.]

Draft Report
Too much time and money has been spent, and continues to be spent, on CCTV as the
so-called 'solution to street crime', without justification, and this crazy
expenditure on CCTV is now acknowledged as an over-simplistic solution to a
complex problem. [Ditton et. al.]

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FROM an initial rapturous, and enthusiastic reception in the mid 1980's, the
effectiveness of CCTV's use as a weapon to prevent or reduce crime rates in city
centres and council housing estates is now discovered to be tiny or non-existent.
Indeed the amount of time, money and energy spent by the various councils, the
police, and the vested interests that continue to 'talk up' and exaggerate its
usefulness is almost a crime in itself!

N.B. an exaggeration is something said which not true - something which is not
true is a lie; therefore we have been systematically lied to about the
effectiveness of camera surveillance!

The real reason so much has been wasted, was and continues to be, is to try to
convince people "we-have-the-answer-every-one-has-been-looking-for!" by showing
the people that they (Councils and the police) have been 'busy', by installing
200? 2000? (more? less?) cameras in West-Cheshire in the past decade.

CCTV installation was and still is, the 'easy option' (and the lazyman/woman's way
out!), for councils and the police, to blithely continue to carry on installing
cameras everywhere, without stopping to check or consider their value as a weapon
in 'the fight against crime'. "There is stronger evidence that street lighting
stops more crime than CCTV; and CCTV does little to prevent crime, although it
does have some limited crime detection use " according to the very latest Home
Office Report.

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The crime reduction claims being made by CCTV proponents are not convincing. Three
recent criminological reports (Home Office Feb 2005, Scottish Office and Southbank
University) have discredited the conventional wisdom about the CCTV camera's
effectiveness.

It is blazingly obvious, that for CCTV surveillance to be fully useful, effective;

efficiently and effectively run, it is necessary for the CCTV images of each of
the cameras to be of high quality. The cameras should also be monitored for many
hours a day.

Is this done anywhere in Chester? By whom? Is a visual record kept for each of the
cameras, and are the images stored, if so what device are they stored on, and
where are they stored? How long are these images kept? Is this done? Who does it
in (and for) Blacon and Chester City? How much does this all cost? Where are the
receipts?

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Conclusions:

Although anyone can point to an individual account of CCTV having a beneficial

influence, the overall result of more than sixteen years of study shows that the
introduction of CCTV in communities like Blacon has little or no effect on the
overall local crime rate.

The money and resources currently taken up with this useless exercise should be
channelled elsewhere - see recommendations below.

Is such surveillance the responsibility of the police or the council or the

private sector? How can the citizen find out these details? Where are the results
of this monitoring, and based on the analysis and interpretation of the images,
what policy or what action has been implemented? Have the authorities used the
information they have from their cameras to improve our neighbourhood over the
past 15 years? If not, why not? If not what use are CCTV cameras?

The pictures have to be analysed, interpreted and then a policy has to be devised,
implemented and consequently action has to be taken.

Recommendations:

* The authorities should halt all current and future plans for the
introduction of CCTV in Blacon and In Chester.

* The money time and effort currently spent on useless CCTV should be re-
channelled on improved street lighting and more Police (Special constables?) or
Community Warden foot patrols

Further Research:

More extensive research is needed before we continue to pour money away on the
'magic solution' of CCTV.

See The Latest Research:August 2007

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Research Sweep 1990's - 2006:
Chapter and Verse…

In a report to the Scottish Office on the impact of CCTV, Jason Ditton, Director
of the Scottish Centre for Criminology, argued that the claims of crime reduction
are little more than fantasy. "All (evaluations and statistics) we have seen so
far are wholly unreliable"; The British Journal of Criminology described the
statistics as "....post hoc shoestring efforts by the untrained and self
interested practitioner." In short, the crime statistics are without credibility.

The crime statistics rarely, if ever, reflect the hypothesis that CCTV merely
displaces criminal activity to areas outside the range of the cameras. One of the
features of current surveillance practice is that the cameras are often installed
in high-rent commercial areas. Crime may be merely pushed from high value
commercial areas into low rent residential areas.

Councils often find that it is impossible to resist demands for such systems.

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There is an additional element of displacement that should be of particularly

concern to all communities. Since the growth of CCTV as the primary means of crime
prevention, more traditional, community based measures have been discarded.

Professor James Ditton, of the Scottish Centre for Criminology, says the cameras
have not lived up to their early promise. After four years of monitoring the
monitors, the professor has called for an independent watchdog to oversee the use
of the technology.

The centre of Glasgow alone is screened day and night by 32 cameras.

"It has been over-hyped and I think that is one of the problems," Prof Ditton told
BBC Scotland,

"It was allegedly going to give us these magnificent benefits of reducing crime
and making the fear of crime diminish to almost nothing."

"Although it probably does have some utility for the police it does not have these
wonderful great societal benefits, so we really question whether the benefits it
does bring us justify photographing everybody who goes into the city everyday".

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Professor James Ditton: "The cameras were vastly over-hyped."

He argued that since the Glasgow cameras were switched on in 1994 crime had fallen
more sharply elsewhere than under their gaze. He said street surveys had shown
people do not feel any safer now.

Professor Ditton also said the cameras had not proved cost effective, producing
just one arrest every 40 days.

"We were very surprised by the findings. We had done some previous research in
Airdrie where CCTV started in Scotland and where we found there was quite a
significant fall in crime after the installation of the cameras," he said. Systems
have been "over-hyped"

"To be honest, we expected to find the same in the Glasgow and we were very
surprised to find it didn't really happen."

The report said there had been no sign of the investment, jobs or visitors it was
promised the cameras would generate.

But because CCTV systems are spreading across the country and some have a wide
focus, the professor is advocating the creation of an independent watchdog to
monitor the way the cameras are used.

'Vastly over-hyped

He (Professor Ditton) said people might begin to question whether they want the
police secretly to tape them in public.

"The cameras were so vastly over-hyped as a magic bullet cure for everything when
they were introduced, that we were all blinded to the fact that this was a small
addition in police terms, but a rather large incursion in civil liberty terms,"
said Professor Ditton.

"The Scottish Executive believes that the majority of CCTV schemes help to prevent
crime and allay public concerns," he said.

And a Scottish Executive spokesman said while the government was disappointed with
the figures in the research, it still believed that CCTV made a significant
contribution to cutting crime.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/394021.stm

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UK Home Office releases research on CCTV effectiveness

Home Office Research Study 292 ‘Assessing the impact of CCTV’

Authors:Martin Gill; Angela Spriggs

Home Office Research, Development and Statistics Directorate Feb 2005 Full 176
Page Report

The full report is available on the Home Office website

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs05/hors292.pdf -- o0o --

Invasion Of Privacy:

Relevant extracts From the Home Office report are shown below.

* "Out of the 13 systems evaluated six showed a relatively substantial

reduction in crime in the target area compared with the control area, but only two
showed a statistically significant reduction relative to the control, and in one
of these cases the change could be explained by the presence of confounding
variables. Crime increased in seven areas but this could not be attributed to
CCTV. The findings in these seven areas were inconclusive as a range of variables
could account for the changes in crime levels, including fluctuations in crime
rates caused by seasonal, divisional and national trends and additional
initiatives."

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* "A number of quantifiable aspects of systems, which could have explained the
impact measured were investigated and it was found that certain types of system
were more effective than others:

* Systems installed in a mixed category of areas (e.g. car parks, a hospital

and various other areas covered by one system) displayed the most encouraging
results in terms of reduction in crime, particularly in car parks.

* Town centre and residential systems showed varied results, with crime going
down in some areas and up in others.
* Residential re-deployable schemes appeared to show no long-term reduction in
crime levels. However, the cameras were dealing with short - term problems, which
require sensitive measures to detect the impact of the cameras."

* "Impulsive crimes (e.g. alcohol-related crimes) were less likely to be

reduced than premeditated crime (e.g. theft of motor vehicles)."

* "Violence against the person rose and theft of motor vehicles fell in the
target areas in accordance with national trends in recorded crime."

* "Respondents rarely changed their behaviour following the installation of

CCTV: across the areas surveyed only from two to seven per cent visited places
they had previously avoided. This is substantially fewer than the 15 per cent of
pre - implementation respondents who thought that CCTV would encourage them to
visit places they avoided."

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The presence of CCTV did not discourage people from visiting places. Only one per
cent of respondents said they avoided places once CCTV had been installed."

"The proportion of respondents happy or very happy about having cameras in their
area declined in nine areas following their installation; in five of these the
reduction was statistically significant. However, the level of support of CCTV
remained high at over 70 per cent of the sample in all but one area."

Concerns regarding the implication for civil liberties decreased slightly

following the implementation of CCTV. Whereas 17 per cent of respondents expressed
such concern prior to its installation, this declined from two to seven percentage
points post CCTV installation."

http://www.privacyinternational.org/article.shtml?cmd[347]=x-347-167206

-- o0o --

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The logic and the statistics are superficially impressive, but some analysts are
not convinced.
In a report to the Scottish Office on the impact of CCTV, Jason Ditton, Director
of the Scottish Centre for Criminology, argued that many claims of crime reduction
are little more than fantasy. "All (evaluations and statistics) we have seen so
far are wholly unreliable", The British Journal of Criminology went further by
describing the statistics as "....post hoc shoestring efforts by the untrained and
self interested practitioner ".

A Scottish Centre for Criminology report on CCTV in Airdrie was unable to rule out
displacement as a factor.

While various studies in other countries indicate that burglars and other
criminals will travel long distances to commit crimes.

Discussing the justification for establishing a surveillance system of 16 cameras

in Manchester, Gordon Conquest, chairman of the city centre sub committee of
Manchester Council, candidly admitted "No crackdown on crime does more than
displace it, and that's the best we can do at the moment."

The Crime Prevention Unit of the Home Office appears to agree. In 1993 it
suppressed the findings of a survey on the crime impact of camera surveillance on
the basis that the displacement effect had been all but ignored.

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In other words, crime may be merely pushed from high value commercial areas into
low rent residential areas. One of the features of current surveillance practice
is that the cameras are often installed in high-rent commercial areas. Councils
often find that it is impossible to resist demands for such systems. The trend is
fuelled in part by the insurance industry, which in some towns is offering a
thirty per cent reduction in premiums to local retailers who pay a contribution to
a CCTV levy system. A nation-wide insurance discount scheme is currently being
negotiated, and should be in place by 1996.
The Time Money And Resources spent, is now seen as a waste of effort.
And some police now also concede that CCTV only displaces crime; that is, it moves
it around!

Richard Thomas, Acting Deputy Chief Constable for Gwent, recently told the BBC's
Andrew Neil that he believed CCTV pushed some crime beyond the range of the
cameras. And in his interview with 20/20, Leslie Sharp said, "Certainly the crime
goes somewhere. I don't believe that just because you've got cameras in a city
centre that everyone says 'Oh well, we're going to give up crime and get a job".

Can CCTV reduce crime?"

-- o0o --

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Three recent criminological reports, according to the Privacy International

website (www.privacyinternational.org), have discredited conventional wisdom about
effectiveness. The director of The Scottish Centre for Criminology argues that
claims of crime reduction are little more than fantasy. The British Journal of
Criminology described the statistics from Strathclyde as "post hoc shoestring
efforts by the untrained and self-interested practitioner". And the crime
statistics rarely reflect the hypothesis that CCTV merely displaces criminal
activity to areas outside the cameras.

"There is stronger evidence that street lighting stops more crime than CCTV," says
Gareth Crossman. "CCTV does little to prevent crime, although it does have some
limited crime detection use.

What we really have is a myth of reassurance. However, the irony is that people
are more afraid of crime than ever."

http://www.seered.co.uk/cctv.htm

-- o0o ---- o0o ---- o0o ---- o0o ---- o0o ---- o0o ---- o0o ----

See The Latest Research:August 2007

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Bibliography:

1. Home Office Research Study 292: ‘Assessing the Impact of CCTV’

2.

Authors:Martin Gill, Angela Spriggs

Home Office Research, Development and Statistics Directorate Feb 2005

Full 176 Page Report

The full report is available on the Home Office website

3. Davies, S (1996) Big Brother.
4. Ditton, J (1996) Does Closed Circuit Television Prevent Crime? Scottish
Centre for Criminology, HSO Edinburgh.
5. Gabor, T (1978) "Crime displacement The literature and strategies for its
investigation", Crime and Justice, Vol. 6 no. 2 p.105.
6. City life, July 27 1994

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FOOTNOTES:

1. http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs05/hors292.pdf
2. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/394021.stm
3. http://www.seered.co.uk/cctv.htm

Article By: a.swaine@tiscali.co.uk November 2007

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