http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8219022.stm



I guess this is a “no [LIFTED], Sherlock” moment. How many here are surprised?

It turns out that a lot of these cameras do not actually "record" anything (and have no means to record) - just "real time" which means a user has to be looking at the correct camera when a crime is being committed

I've course, the reason is that the cameras have all but eliminated crime in those areas they are deployed. The one crime that was committed was 100% solved.

I sense a large amount of sarcasm there JJ, but I think it's a valid point.

If a camera is put up in a crime hotspot, to combat muggings for example, then the muggers go elsewhere!

If the standard sort of cameras used in private/commercial areas are anything to go by, I'm not even slightly surprised.

I used to work in a hotel that had cameras dotted about the place, and in spite of them recording a few different crimes, they never showed anything that was even useful to the police, never mind anything that would stand up in court. A few blurry images that could have been anyone is the best you could get (the replay quality is so massively compressed it's virtually useless).

I remember being in the reception area once (with a camera about 6ft away) with a colleague, and on viewing the replay we honestly couldn't tell which of us was which, it was that bad.

I appreciate the kit used in public is of a better calibre, but seeing replays on crimewatch etc has yet to convince me they're that much better.

Many Chief Inspectors have been saying for a long time now that CCTV has been a complete waste of money, when compared to the numbers of Police you could actually have patrolling for the cost of the surveillance network.

Surely it's better to prevent crimes in the first place.

No, I'm not surprised Paul. I think we both now why the cameras are there, and it isn't to prevent (or solve) crimes

I'm with Redeyes in this. I've yet to see CCTV footage that could give anything like a positive ID at more than about twenty feet. In the street they are also usually pretty high up so anyone close with a hood or cap is pretty unidentifiable as their face is masked by the angles. Criminals of course know all of that. They only work if you have bodies on the ground to guide by CCTV when you don't need the same level of ID by maintaining positive tracking. But of course that very rarely happens with so many cameras to monitor, gaps in coverage and response times of the police.

I investigated fitting CCTV at home a year or two back because of some vandalism and so on but rapidly came to the conclusion that, especially at night, even the really expensive ones had a pretty small area of coverage that gave any chance of positively ID'ing anyone. Which made them a complete waste of money. We're talking old big farmhouse and so on. To get anything like coverage would have involved at least eight cameras. A couple of extra security lights to eliminate 'dark corners' and making a point of wandering around in the evening a little was effective and a whole lot cheaper.

Richard.