British Study Finds Security Cameras Don't Reduce Crime Sep 24, 2007
Statistics obtained by the British Liberal Democrats Party through the Freedom of Information Act (yes, they have one, too) show that even with over 10,000 cameras in various London boroughs, 80 percent of all crimes still go unsolved. In fact, when broken down by borough, there is no correlation between the number of cameras and the percent of crimes solved.
* There are now 10,524 CCTV cameras in 32 London boroughs funded with Home Office grants totaling about £200million.
* Hackney has the most cameras -- 1,484 -- and has a better-than-average "clear up rate" of 22.2 per cent.
* Wandsworth has 993 cameras, Tower Hamlets, 824, Greenwich, 747 and Lewisham 730, but police in all four boroughs fail to reach the average 21 percent clear-up rate.
* By contrast, boroughs such as Kensington and Chelsea, Sutton and Waltham Forest have fewer than 100 cameras each, yet they still have clear-up rates of around 20 per cent.
* Police in Sutton have one of the highest clear-ups with 25 per cent.
* Brent police have the highest clear-up rate, with 25.9 per cent of crimes solved in 2006-07, even though the borough has only 164 cameras.
After 10 years and £200 million of tax payer money, groups like the criminal justice charity Narco are questioning whether the money would have been better spent on more street lights, which can cut crime by up to 20 percent.
Even the scariest of stories about government and police surveillance usually end with the good guys catching the bad guys, which makes the "Big Brother" theories a little less ominous. We don't mean to burst your bubble or anything, but as this story shows, that doesn't always happen.
