Uses

Crime prevention and prevalence in the UK

Outside government special facilities, CCTV was developed initially as a means of increasing security in banks. Experiments in the UK during the 1970s and 1980s (including outdoor CCTV in Bournemouth in 1985), led to several larger trial programs later that decade.[6]

These were deemed successful in the government report "CCTV: Looking Out For You", issued by the Home Office in 1994, and paved the way for a massive increase in the number of CCTV systems installed. Today, systems cover most town and city centres, and many stations, car-parks and estates.

The exact number of CCTV cameras in the UK is not known but a 2002 working paper by Michael McCahill and Clive Norris of UrbanEye,[7] based on a small sample in Putney High Street, estimated the number of surveillance cameras in private premises in London is around 500,000 and the total number of cameras in the UK is around 4,200,000.

According to their estimate the UK has one camera for every 14 people, although it has been acknowledged that the methodology behind this figure is somewhat dubious.[8] The CCTV User Group estimate that there are around 1.5 million CCTV cameras in city centres, stations, airports, major retail areas and so forth. This figure does not include the smaller surveillance systems such as those that may be found in local corner shops. [9]

However, there is little evidence that CCTV deters crime.[10] According to a Liberal Democrat analysis, in London "Police are no more likely to catch offenders in areas with hundreds of cameras than in those with hardly any."[11] A 2008 Report by UK Police Chiefs concluded that only


3% of crimes were solved by CCTV.

Cameras have also been installed in taxis in the hope of deterring violence against drivers,[13][14] and in mobile police surveillance vans.[15] In some cases CCTV cameras have become a target of attacks themselves.[16] Middlesbrough council have recently installed "Talking CCTV" cameras in their busy town-centre.[17] It is a system pioneered in Wiltshire, which allows CCTV operators to communicate directly with the offenders they spot.[18]