AS note: no trade off in civil liberties

Official government research indicates that CCTV has made a minimal impact on crime prevention

Some commentators have criticised those expressing concern about liberties as over-reacting. David Goodhart, for instance, writing in Prospect, the magazine he edits, argues that the capacity for rational debate has been damaged. We are not, he says, living in a police state. He does not know of any instance of an individual suffering at the hands of CCTV cameras or the DNA database, and that he is reassured by the presence of CCTV in London covering his four children. Goodhart, like a vast number of people, has accepted the new measures as part of a trade off whereby the government make us safer from crime and terrorism.

But a report in today’s Guardian suggests that claims that CCTV makes us safer hold little water.

‘The use of closed-circuit television in city and town centres and public housing estates does not have a significant effect on crime, according to Home Office-funded research to be distributed to all police forces in England and Wales this summer.

The review of 44 research studies on CCTV schemes by the Campbell Collaboration found that they do have a modest impact on crime overall but are at their most effective in cutting vehicle crime in car parks, especially when used alongside improved lighting and the introduction of security guards.,

It can be argued that even a modest cut in crime is better than nothing, that the conviction of a criminal for a violent assault that would not have been secured without CCTV evidence, for instance, justifies cost. But the point is that criminal justice budgets are limited and there are questions about whether the money spent could be better spent on areas like improved community policing.