Spycam nation is still crime nation

A senior British police officer, monitoring a national database, in empirical evidence statements that American civil libertarians should memorize, say that the U.K.’s massive nationwide system of closed-circuit TV cameras monitoring public squares and open spaces is having little effect on crime. How little of an effect?

The U.K. has, by far, the biggest CCTV system of any country in Europe. But it has helped solve only 3 percent of street robberies.

Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville, the officer in charge of the Metropolitan (London) police unit, provided the Guardian more details of his assessment.

“Billions of pounds has been spent on kit, but no thought has gone into how the police are going to use the images and how they will be used in court. It's been an utter fiasco: only 3 percent of crimes were solved by CCTV. There’s no fear of CCTV. Why don't people fear it? [They think] the cameras are not working.”

More training was needed for officers, he said. Often they do not want to find CCTV images “because it's hard work.” Sometimes the police did not bother inquiring beyond local councils to find out whether CCTV cameras monitored a particular street incident.

“CCTV operators need feedback. If you call them back, they feel valued and are more helpful. We want to develop a career path for CCTV [police] inquirers.”

That said, Neville also said expanding the reach of CCTV in more areas outside London, expanding its resolution and more, needs to be balanced against legitimate Big Brother concerns.

Here’s another problem, so far – decentralization:

Cheshire deputy chief constable Graham Gerrard, who chairs the CCTV working group of the Association of Chief Police Officers, told the Guardian, that it made no sense to have a national DNA and fingerprint database, but to have to approach 43 separate forces for images of suspects and offenders.

This would happen in spades in the U.S. Different states and municipalities would have different standards. The FBI, with its notorious antipathy toward computers and technology, and its woeful outdatedness on much of the same, would be unable to get ahead of the situation.