CCTV
Assessing the impact of CCTV – the South City Case Study
The report assesses the impact of CCTV in tackling alcohol-related crime, criminal damage, public disorder and fear of crime in the South City area. South City secured funding through the government's crime reduction programme to install 51 cameras extending an existing sixteen-camera system.
Title: Assessing the impact of CCTV – the South City Case Study
Author: Martin Gill, Daniel Swain, Angela Spriggs, Jenna Allen, Javier Argomaniz, Sam Waples of the Home Office.
Series: On-line report 11/05
Date published: February 2005
Number of pages: 22
Availability: Download full report 
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How effective was CCTV in achieving its objectives?
To provide intelligence to the police to detect, deter, and prevent crime
Fifty-seven incidents were monitored over a 48-hour period, 27 of which could be classified as crimes. Operators passed intelligence to the police on 14 separate occasions. Ten of these incidents occurred on the Friday evening/night shift whilst a police officer was in the control room. It enabled them to prevent offences being committed by defusing potentially violent situations.
There was a lack of CCTV evidence used in criminal proceedings because of a lack of technical equipment to show the images in court. However, a number of offenders did change their pleas to guilty after being confronted with the images.
Address the problems of alcohol-related crime, criminal damage, and public disorder
The number of alcohol related offences, violence against the person and public order offences increased in the first year.
CCTV did not deter alcohol-related offenders but did increase reporting of public disorder offences.
Placing a police officer in the control room on a Friday and Saturday night allowed the police to respond quickly to public disorder.
Criminal damage fell by 20% over the first year CCTV was operational suggesting it may have been a deterrent.
Address fear of crime
Only 19.5% of the sample believed that crime in South City had got lower since the introduction of CCTV.
The presence of cameras did not reduce fear of crime, as those who were aware of the cameras were more likely to be worried about becoming a victim of crime than those that weren't aware.
Only 17% agreed that CCTV was making a difference in the places they visited within the city centre, indicating that the scheme did not have a major influence.
Regenerate the area
The project aimed to regenerate the city centre by identifying issues such as accumulation of litter, damaged or dangerous street signs, and traffic management and bring them to the attention of service providers, leading to their removal. The project simply failed to do this.
Conclusion
CCTV worked well in conjunction with a number of other police initiatives and had a number of positive effects:
The project operated in conjunction with the police, which increased the detection of public order offences in the city centre.
The system expanded an existing retail radio based scheme and enabled the operator to pass information to relevant agencies about retail related offences e.g. shoplifting.
The cameras deterred criminal damage.
The project provided the police with evidence to investigate offences committed in the target area.
The project improved working relationships between the police and City Council through the forum of the CCTV steering group.
Last update: Wednesday, September 20, 2006