Massive investment in CCTV cameras to prevent crime in the UK has failed to have a significant impact, despite billions of pounds spent on the new technology, a senior police officer piloting a new database has warned. Only 3% of street robberies in London were solved using CCTV images, despite the fact that Britain has more security cameras than any other country in Europe.
The warning comes from the head of the Visual Images, Identifications and Detections Office (Viido) at New Scotland Yard as the force launches a series of initiatives to try to boost conviction rates using CCTV evidence. They include:
· A new database of images which is expected to use technology developed by the sports advertising industry to track and identify offenders.
· Putting images of suspects in muggings, rape and robbery cases out on the Internet from next month.
· Building a national CCTV database, incorporating pictures of convicted offenders as well as unidentified suspects. The plans for this have been drawn up, but are on hold while the technology required to carry out automated searches is refined.
Well now wait a minute. Weren't we all told that more cameras and more surveillance would make us all safer? At least here in America, they did. But, people keep saying that it doesn't do jack squat, and unfortunately, the British are proving that point for us.
Simply put, Benjamin Franklin said it best when he said: "Those who give up liberty for security deserve neither".
If you're going to try to infringe on the rights of the people for security, and you don't make them more secure, you've failed and you need to scrap your plans. It didn't work in Britain, so it certainly isn't going to work here.
Travis
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