# 1 Crime Solved for every 1,000 London CCTV Cameras



## Hawk19 (Jan 9, 2009)

*Only one crime was solved by each 1,000 CCTV cameras in London last year, a report into the city's surveillance network has claimed.*

The internal police report found the million-plus cameras in London rarely help catch criminals.

In one month CCTV helped capture just eight out of 269 suspected robbers. 
David Davis MP, the former shadow home secretary, said: "It should provoke a long overdue rethink on where the crime prevention budget is being spent."















*The Metropolitan Police has been extraordinarily slow to act to deal with the ineffectiveness of CCTV*









David Davis MP

He added: "CCTV leads to massive expense and minimum effectiveness. 
"It creates a huge intrusion on privacy, yet provides little or no improvement in security.

"The Metropolitan Police has been extraordinarily slow to act to deal with the ineffectiveness of CCTV."

A spokesman for the Met said: "We estimate more than 70% of murder investigations have been solved with the help of CCTV retrievals and most serious crime investigations have a CCTV investigation strategy."

Officers from 11 boroughs have formed a new unit which collects and labels footage centrally before distributing them across the force and media. 
It has led to more than 1,000 identifications out of 5,260 images processed so far.

A Home Office spokeswoman said CCTVs "help communities feel safer".

BBC NEWS | UK | England | London | 1,000 cameras 'solve one crime'


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## MVS (Jul 2, 2003)

Just think, the rates might not be huge, but those are a few more solved crimes than they wouldn't have had without the cameras.


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## Trifecta (Mar 3, 2006)

Second. 

You beat me to it


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## dingbat (May 8, 2008)

RPD931 said:


> Just think, the rates might not be huge, but those are a few more solved crimes than they wouldn't have had without the cameras.


But what does a thousand cameras cost compared to putting a few more cops on the street?


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## Killjoy (Jun 23, 2003)

> Just think, the rates might not be huge, but those are a few more solved crimes than they wouldn't have had without the cameras.


I hate the idea of a major metropolitian city riddled with so many cameras...its so fascist! I'll take privacy over government intrusion any day, one or two extra crimes solved notwithstanding.



> But what does a thousand cameras cost compared to putting a few more cops on the street?


Not to mention all the people to man the control centers, hard drives, camera maintenance, etc. Cameras do you little good if there's not enough officers to respond to them.


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## Guest (Aug 29, 2009)

Killjoy said:


> I hate the idea of a major metropolitian city riddled with so many cameras...its so fascist! I'll take privacy over government intrusion any day, one or two extra crimes solved notwithstanding.


I highly agree with this. While it may be useful it should never be at the cost of our privacy.



> Not to mention all the people to man the control centers, hard drives, camera maintenance, etc. Cameras do you little good if there's not enough officers to respond to them.


 Men are always better than machines, and machines don't have families that need supporting.


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## Goose (Dec 1, 2004)

...next they'll pull all officers off the street to save money as they do 'nothing' to prevent crime.

They can sleep in their stations until they are needed.

Oh wait, those are firefighters.


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## Irish Wampanoag (Apr 6, 2003)

dingbat said:


> But what does a thousand cameras cost compared to putting a few more cops on the street?


Absolutely!!! Conservatively speaking I do not support big brother at all!


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