One crime solved for every 1,000 CCTV cameras, senior officer claims

Just one crime is solved a year by every 1,000 CCTV cameras in Britain's largest force area, it was claimed today.

A senior Scotland Yard officer, Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville, warned police must do more to head off a crisis in public confidence over the use of surveillance cameras.

DCI Neville said officers need to improve their results to make captured images count against criminals.

He said there are more than a million CCTV cameras in London and the Government has spent £500 million on the crime-fighting equipment.

But he admitted just 1,000 crimes were solved in 2008 using CCTV images as officers fail to make the most of potentially vital evidence.

Writing in an internal report, Mr Neville said people are filmed many times every day and have high expectations when they become victims of crime.

But he suggested the reality is often disappointing as in some cases officers fail to bring criminals to justice even after they are caught on camera and identified.

DCI Neville said CCTV played a role in capturing just eight out of 269 suspected robbers across London in one month.

Critics of Britain's so-called ''surveillance state'' will seize on DCI Neville's comments as further evidence CCTV is not working in the fight against crime.

The Government is considering whether every camera should be registered on centrally-held CCTV maps.

Earlier this year a Home Office report found camera schemes have a ''modest impact'' on reducing crime.

Researchers found cameras were most effective in preventing vehicle thefts and vandalism in car parks.

Some local authorities have been forced to make freedom of information requests to police forces to try and work out if CCTV cameras are effective.

The Metropolitan Police is piloting a scheme, known as Operation Javelin, to improve the use of images from existing cameras.

Staff in 11 boroughs have formed dedicated Visual Images Identification and Detection Offices (VIIDO).

They collect and label images before passing them to a central circulation unit that distributes them to officers, forces and the media.

Some 5,260 images have been viewed so far this year with identification made in more than 1,000 cases.

DCI Neville said the scheme should be expanded to force-wide as officers make the investigation of CCTV evidence as professional as fingerprints and DNA.

David Davis, the former shadow home secretary said it is ''entirely unsurprising'' that the report highlights some shortcomings of CCTV.

''It should provoke a major and long overdue rethink on where the Home Office crime prevention budget is being spent," he said.

''CCTV leads to massive expense and minimum effectiveness. It creates a huge intrusion on privacy, yet provides little or no improvement in security.

''The Metropolitan Police has been extraordinarily slow to act to deal with the ineffectiveness of CCTV, something true both in London and across the country.''

Detective Superintendent Michael McNally, who commissioned the report, said improvements in the use of CCTV can be made.

He told Sky News: ''There are some concerns, and that's why we have a number of projects that are on-going at the moment.

''CCTV, we recognise, is a really important part of investigation and prevention of crime, so how we retrieve that from the individual CCTV pods is really quite important.''

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: ''The Metropolitan Police is currently the only police service to employ this method of CCTV tracking.''

Paris to quadruple number of CCTV cameras

Paris will quadruple the number of closed-circuit police cameras in its streets by the end of next year, after President Nicolas Sarkozy's promise to emulate London in an attempt to track crime and terrorism threats.

By Henry Samuel in Paris
Published: 1:47PM BST 16 Oct 2008

While the Paris metro and rail networks already operate around 9,500 CCTV devices, police have only 330 at their disposal to survey outside public areas. The new plan, dubbed "A Thousand Cameras for Paris", will raise that number to more than 1,200 – with most installed in high-risk areas and outside railway and underground stations.

The figure is still small compared with London, where each citizen is caught on average several hundred times a day. Britain has about four million closed-circuit security cameras compared with France's 340,000.

The CCTV drive follows Mr Sarkozy's pledge last autumn to follow London's surveillance lead. "I am very impressed by the efficiency of the British police thanks to this network of cameras," the French president said. "In my mind, there is no contradiction between respecting individual freedoms and the installation of cameras to protect everyone's security."

Until now, large meeting places such as the Place de la République, where strike protests usually start, and the busy Champs-Elysées were already heavily equipped.

But police want to beef up surveillance outside the Gare du Nord – where the London to Paris Eurostar terminates – the scene of several gang battles in recent months.

It will increase on the Champ-de-Mars – the area around the Eiffel tower – where violent youths recently attacked a group of students celebrating the end of their baccalaureate exams.

More cameras will be installed in the 19th arrondissement, where a Jewish youth was killed in June in an apparent anti-Semitic attack, as well as in the 18th arrondissement – home to Montmartre and the Sacré Coeur.

Paris's police chief will present the plan to city councillors next week. The capital's Socialist mayor, Bertrand Delanoë, long opposed to CCTV, recognised its effectiveness in fighting crime in his campaign for re-election this year.

"The objective is not to cover every road, every corner of the city, but to put video means where common sense dictates," one of the plan's authors told Le Figaro, which leaked the details.

Many of the current cameras are so low-resolution that the images are unusable in a court of law, local politicians say. Interior minister Michèle Alliot-Marie will draw up a charter to go with the new generation of cameras, limiting to 30 the days recorded images can be stored. There will be strict controls on who is allowed to view them.

French police also hope a mini spy-in-the-sky drone the size of a toy glider will help them track rioters and fight crime.

Infrared Camera Wide Angle YY_F25A530 1/3" Sony Superhad Color CCD DSP Waterproof Indoor/outdoor Infrared Illumination Nightvision 3.6mm Lens 5mm 30 Leds Camera Ip66 Silver (90 Degree Wide Viewing Angle) with Free Mounting Bracket

Product Description

This Day/Night Vision Color Bullet camera can incredibility see 75 feet in total darkness. It has 30 high power Long life luminary with special wavelength Infrared LED. It also meet the IP-66 water and dust proof standard for outdoor and indoor special IR Led board can void cross-voltage input error(positive and negative end reverse) during installation. This camera employs 1/3" SONY SuperHAD CCD sensor and Digital Signal Processor (DSP) IC for image control. We guarantee this camera offers at least 10 times better image than those cheap CMOS on the market. It provides excellent day time color image and black/white night vision in total darkness. Built-in environment illumination detection and control circuit that can turn-on/off the infrared illuminant automatically. It comes fully assembled, pre-wired and pre-focused for easy installation. New Universal Bracket provides for quick pan/tilt camera adjustment. All brand new in box. Note: This camera not made by SONY, it using SONY Super HAD CCD image sensor and SONY DSP technology, made by one of the world largest OEM manufacture. Power supply and cable are sold separately.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4506 in Consumer Electronics
• Color: Silver
• Brand: YY Trade Inc
• Model: F25A530
• Dimensions: 2.95" h x 2.83" w x 4.96" l, 1.43 pounds

Features

• LED 420 TV lines high resolution base on the 1/3" SONY SuperHAD CCD sensor.
• Infrared Lenses f 3.6mm super wide angle; 0 lux with IR LED; Built in IR illuminator effective up to 75 feet 50°
• Built in light sensor; Auto iris AES; Video out
• Distance up to 75 Feet, Sunshield, Anti-ultraviolet
• Dimensions 72mmW x 75mmH x 126mmL, Free universal mounting bracket

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Customer Reviews

IR Buff
This is a very nice little camera and I feel it is a great value if you are looking for a camera with a 3.6mm lens (aprox.90 degree field of view). The camera has very good night vision compared to the IR cameras that came with my system. The IR cameras that came with my system could not see down my driveway in the dark let alone see the street in front of my house at night. Now at night, I can see down my driveway and with the illumination from the streetlights I can see across the street.

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Works great!
I bought this to work with the Q-See 4-Channel PCI card in my PC. The picture is great when hooked directly to a TV, but the Q-See MPEG compression really defeats the high resolution of this cam. Night vision is pretty grainy beyond 10-15 feet, but the illumination is good within that range. My only gripe is that I intended to mount this under an eave of my roof, but the hole for the bracket is underneath the camera and the bracket is not long enough to mount under a horizontal surface. This will have to be vertically mounted on a wall, which is less attractive and less weather resistant. Otherwise; a pretty good buy. BEAR IN MIND: this does NOT include a power adapter or "Siamese Cabling", factor that into your budget.
Great low light condition camera
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