The Telegraph

Surveillance cameras do little, if anything, to prevent late night alcohol-fuelled crime and violence on Britain’s high streets, the country’s most senior police officer in the field has admitted.

[...]

He also admitted the public had been “misled” into believing that installing camera systems would have a big impact on anti-social behaviour.

The article goes on to say only those thinking ‘rationally’ about CCTV surveillance will be deterred from criminal activity. In fact most people don’t think about CCTV, never mind rationally even when sober – as a general tool it is bound to be a remarkably ineffective deterrent.

To combat the problem, Mr Gerrard said he would like all camera owners and operators to be required by law to produce high quality images using a standardised system so the police could use them effectively in court.

Unfortunately Mr Gerrard fails it. Higher quality images will not increase the ‘rationality’ of the ‘law-abiding’ general public. Higher quality images will not remedy the problem of indiscriminate (non-targeted) CCTV capturing irrelevant images of the public.

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This entry was posted on Friday, January 18th, 2008 at 8:46 am and is filed under The Law.