London’s Surveillance Fails - Only 1 Crime Solved per 1000 Cameras | Hacker News Reader

London’s Surveillance Fails - Only 1 Crime Solved per 1000 Cameras

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32 pointskkleiner22 comments

What the article has missed is the fact that these cameras and their operators are less interested in crime and far more interested in fine-able offenses such as motorists parking incorrectly; stopping in the wrong place; driving too fast; people putting their rubbish out on the wrong day; people putting the wrong rubbish in the recycle bins; or whatever else they can bill you for to pay off the bank-bailouts.

Local councils are milking these cameras for all that they are worth. Most of the cameras aren't even watching crime spots, but are instead focused on the roads at stop signs etc. Given the added revenue - irrespective of the crime prevention stats - those cameras are here to stay.

Well but that's sort of the point. I think 99% of the people on earth would be in favor of camera setups like this if there was some way to guarantee it would only be used to catch murderers and rapists. But it's a slippery slope and once you put that power in the Government's hands they will almost certainly abuse it.

You're probably right about the cameras being a permanent fixture in London. But the fact that Government officials are using them more for minor infractions than serious crime is a lesson that may prevent setups like this in other places.

Definitely. Why solve crimes when you can catch people going to the toilet on the street and fine them each £60 or whatever it is.

You know there's a good reason to not live in cities. Move out to the country! Do what they hell you want! :)

I can't say I'm surprised. In the UK but outside London, a group I belong to suffered a significant theft (a few thousand pounds, IIRC) from a local building. There is only one entrance to the building that is normally open, there is only one road leading up to it, that road is very quiet, and there are CCTV cameras around the end of the road. When the theft was reported, within 24 hours of when it must have taken place, the police didn't even seem interested enough to look up the camera footage.

Too much information, that's the problem.

Just wait until people are actively spamming the surveillance system :-)

Bruce Schneier also had some commentary on this http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/08/on_londons_sur...

What about the drop in crime rate?

That's a good point. CCTV may act as a deterrent.

It make me wonder if crime moves somewhere without CCTV (in which case we'd need a 100% coverage to win, not a good proposition).

Or, perhaps, it's not a zero-sum game. If many criminals are not "professionals", then CCTV could dramatically reduce crimes of opportunity if it does act as deterrent.

To analyze it right, I'd want to see if petty theft and other crimes of opportunity were reduced, rather than crimes like street brawling. Lumping all crime together when some are unlikely to be influenced by the cameras (because they are motivated by emotion rather than profit, for example).

The only reference to any change in crime rate is "In fact, besides parking lots, few locations seem to have lower crime rates thanks to the cameras dotted around the city." There's no other mention of parking lots in the article.

Is there a significant drop in London's crime rate that isn't seen in comparable areas that are known to not have cameras?

Apparently Crime in London is at a ten year low: http://urdunews.wordpress.com/2009/01/22/london-crime-rate-d...

But the police don't seem to be giving CCTV credit for that: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/may/06/ukcrime1

So I think it's one of those "draw your own conclusion" situations.

compared to other major world cities it is still astonishingly high though.

If there was any discernible drop in crime rates, rest assured that they would be shouting this from the roof tops.

But how many additional crimes were reduced?

Maybe the people who are committing these crimes know that they are under surveillance and do it intelligently.

A lot of other criminals may be aware of the surveillance cameras and not even bother to commit a crime.

Indeed, not unlike the heisenberg uncertainty principle.

I guess this means that we only need 60 billion cameras in the UK to prevent all crime (assuming every citizen is a criminal, which seems pretty close to the government approach).

Lord knows we're all sinners!

The worst thing IMHO is speed cameras. 99% of the population breaks the speed limit regularly. Catching a random part of those on speed cameras and fining adding points to license etc is a really bad way to go about things.

> 99% of the population breaks the speed limit regularly.

They really don't, though of course those who do speed routinely like to think that "everyone does it".

I'm no fan of our often arbitrary speed limits, nor of automated enforcement of them, nor of the penalty system our laws provide to deal with motoring offences in general. But seriously, spewing silly numbers does nothing to advance the legitimate arguments in favour of improving these things, so please don't do that.

Do you drive a car in the UK? Anyone going 70 or less on a motorway would be considered to be going slowly. 80-85 is usual cruising speed.

http://www.abd.org.uk/motorwayspeedlimit.htm

"On motorways in the UK, the 85th percentile speed for cars is approximately 85 mph, i.e. 15 mph above the current limit."

"speed surveys show that 56% of car drivers exceed the 70 mph limit on motorways in this country and a significant proportion regard 80-85 mph as a normal cruising speed."

Don't get me wrong, I think that 30mph limits should mean 30 - as long as they are placed as they should be - But motorway driving is completely different. Driving 80 or 90 on a motorway when there is no real risk should not be a crime IMHO. Cars are safer and the vast majority of car accidents happen on smaller roads at slow speeds.

Having speed cameras on motorways is just an alternative to toll booths.

That gets on my nerves. I couldn't afford the fine (and, as a 23-year-old male, a hike in the already punitive insurance premium) if I was to be caught speeding.

But driving at 70 on a busy motorway is quite difficult - the slow lane is full of trucks crawling along at 55-60 and both other lanes tend to move along at 80 or so. Going at 70 in the middle lane leaves you open to being cast as one of those annoying middle lane hoggers, so I tend to end up having to keep changing lanes, which is surely more dangerous...

While I agree with you that a blanket 70 limit on motorways is an anachronism, many of the arguments put by groups like the ABD, and opposing groups like Brake for that matter, are excellent examples of lying with selective statistics and outright conjecture.

For example, the latest official statistics[1] in fact say that "On motorways in 2008, 49 per cent of cars exceeded the 70 mph speed limit. In addition, 15 per cent of cars were recorded as travelling at 80 mph or faster."

While nearly 7 in 10 drivers exceeded 30mph limits ten years earlier, just under half do so now. These roads and motorways are by far the most common road types for speeding.

In other words, your "the majority speed" claim and your claim of the 85% level are both some way off.

[1] http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/statistics/datatablespublications/...

> They really don't, though of course those who do speed routinely like to think that "everyone does it".

I can't speak for my friends across the pond, but where I live (Atlanta), driving at or below the speed limit on any road where they'd have a speed camera (so, interstates) would pose a serious safety risk.

The exception to this is highway onramps. Apparently, in the minds of this city's population, the appropriate speed to enter a crowded eight-lane interstate with a mean speed of 70mph is about 40-45. Drives me crazy.

When you have as many cameras as they do that sounds like a pretty successful statistic without hiring.30 cent an hour Chinese workers to watch your day-behind video footage all day.

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