
London’s Surveillance Fails - Only 1 Crime Solved per 1000 Cameras - kkleiner
http://singularityhub.com/2009/09/01/londons-surveillance-fails-only-1-crime-solved-per-1000-cameras/
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Musashi
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.

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TomOfTTB
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.

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Silhouette
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.

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tnovelli
Too much information, that's the problem.

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

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Janzert
Bruce Schneier also had some commentary on this
[http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/08/on_londons_sur...](http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/08/on_londons_surv.html)

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rokhayakebe
What about the drop in crime rate?

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anamax
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?

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TomOfTTB
Apparently Crime in London is at a ten year low:
[http://urdunews.wordpress.com/2009/01/22/london-crime-
rate-d...](http://urdunews.wordpress.com/2009/01/22/london-crime-rate-down-
to-10-year-low/)

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.

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

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dangoldin
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.

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uuilly
Indeed, not unlike the heisenberg uncertainty principle.

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swombat
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).

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axod
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.

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Silhouette
> 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.

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axod
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.

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andyking
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...

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gscott
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.

