Speed cameras don't cut accidents...probably

The words "I told you" spring to mind at this morning's news on speed cameras - or "safety cameras" as their advocates like to dub them:

Ministers fear that thousands of cameras have served only to raise millions from motorists, rather than improve safety.

The findings, from an initial sample of 75 local authorities, will prompt the Government to call on every council to publish detailed information on each speed camera site, including accident rates and how much has been raised in fines.

Ministers hope that local authorities will succumb to pressure to remove the controversial devices if the information does not demonstrate that accidents have been cut. 

Oh dear! It seems that the people who advocate putting cameras on every street corner were wrong and that folk like me who said that driver training is more important that on street management were right.

I'm sure we've not heard the last of this - just as with CCTV (where the Home Office knows it doesn't reduce crime), the enthusiasts for lucrative speed cameras will be out there shroud waving. And ignoring the evidence.

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You see folks, CCTV really is useless...

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Via the excellent JuliaM:

Amanda Wright, who runs Wright's Family Bakers in Walton on the Naze, Essex asked for the images after mindless vandals smashed the shop's front window.


But the baker was left gobsmacked when Tendring District Council bosses refused the request, saying it would be too expensive to retrieve footage.

 
And why exactly does the Council install CCTV? Clearly - and I could have told you that -  not for the purpose of catching criminals.
 
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It seems the police don't know whether CCTV works!

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I raised a Freedom of Information request for information about the effectiveness of Bradford's CCTV as a means of detecting crime in the City Centre. I asked what I thought was a pretty simple question:

How many individuals have been charged with assault, robbery or other violent offences as a result of evidence from CCTV cameras within Bradford City Centre.

It seems that the police don't know the answer and, more importantly, don't intend to find out the answer! Here's part of their response:

In order to obtain the required information would involve an in-depth search of each offence to establish whether CCTV contributed to the charge. For the 2010/2011 financial year there were 308 crime records for violent offences and robbery detected by means of a charge in the Bradford City Ward. At an estimate of 5 minutes per record it would take in the region of 26 hours to conduct this search. In addition, it has been estimated that it would take a further hour to provide the total number of crimes in Bradford City ward.

Now two important points stand out here - firstly my question didn't related to City Ward (which includes much more than the City Centre itself) but to the City Centre. And secondly I asked (as a supplement to the question above) for the total number of offences recorded - the police have chosen not to respond.

 I shall follow up - perhaps by asking a question of the Bradford Council leader at full council as well as through getting the police to actually respond to the question I asked.

However, I find it surprising that the police are simply not interested in whether the very expensive investment in CCTV is of any value. Or maybe they know it's useless?

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CCTV is a total waste of money and the cops aren't much cop either.

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OK so you don't believe me? In Bradford - where we've spent millions on fancy cameras and plenty on men to watch them - the cameras are unable to provide a good enough resolution picture for identification from a well lit area of individuals who are not hooded or masked. And the response of the police to me (I was chairing a Stronger & Safer Communities Scrutiny Committee) when I asked for some evidence was this:


Dear Cllr Cooke

Thank you for raising the query last night about the quality of evidential CCTV in the City and your concerns that this was impeding our ability to identify suspects.

I have spoken with my CCTV Team this morning who have reassurred me that in over 90% of the cases they investigate the picture quality of BMDC CCTV is to a good or excellent standard. There are however some occasions when the pictures are grainy or unclear which can be down to the lighting or the fact that we are relying on some of the older cameras or even the UTC cameras.

There are also numerous private CCTV systems in the City installed by shops and businesses which are not always of sufficient quality to use evidentially.

As discussed last night the updating and maintainance of these cameras is a challenge for the council due to the financial constaints at this time and the fact that this is a non statutory service makes it an area for potential cutbacks.

As a police officer I recognise the evidential value of CCTV and I hope that as a partnership we are able to support Phil Holmes and his team in maintaining what is as this time a very comprehensive system which assists in keeping our Towns and Cities safer.

 (from crime reduction inspector)

Now I've read an re-read this and find it most reassuring. The Inspector is assured by her team - no evidence, just assurance - that it's all fine and hunky-dory. Except that some of the cameras ore 'older', others are cheap ones put up by shops and still others (UTC cameras) aren't very good. That leaves - not very many at all that really do the job. And those might be subject to reduced maintenance because of Council spending cuts.

I intend to ask how many prosecutions of City Centre robberies have been achieved as a result of identifications by CCTV. I expect the answer to be a pretty small number. What annoys me most is that a serious assault can take place in the City Centre and the Police will rely almost exclusively on CCTV identification, witness statements and getting the witnesses and victim (assuming they can) to flick through a few snapshots of possible culprits. If this doesn't throw anything up the case file is bunged in the "can't solve this now, got better/easier things to do" pile in the hope that the criminals do another crime and the cops get lucky. No effort, none of that meticulous investigation, no using the CCTV as a guide to avenues of enquiry, no extra patrolling. Nothing.

All this because, of course, CCTV can catch all those baddies! Except that it doesn't work.

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On the uselessness of CCTV

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A young man is violently attacked in a well lit city centre which – the Council and local police boast – has one of the country’s most sophisticated and comprehensive CCTV systems. Indeed, while authorities are quick to release images in the interests of suppressing legitimate protest, but when it’s an ordinary, harmless young man clubbed over the head while going about his wholly innocent business the images aren’t good enough to identify the unpleasant little thugs who committed the crime.

And it would seem that this is the end of it. Having failed to identify the culprits with the cameras, the police have put the crime in the pile labelled ‘pending’ and gone onto more important things like hounding harmless motorists, attending “partners and communities together” meetings (don’t ask) and refusing to help passing strangers with simple questions. It isn’t just that the CCTV is useless as an effective system for identifying criminals (and it would seem that they know this), it has become an excuse for the police to stop doing their job effectively. No pictures means no arrests.

And the excuse?

“There are…some occasions when the pictures are grainy or unclear which can be down to the lighting or the fact that we are relying on some of the older cameras or even the UTC cameras.”

The presence of cameras does not make for better crime prevention, more effective policing or safer city centres. It just makes the police lazy.

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"Shameless" or shameful - dealing with anti-social families

There have always been problem families – you know the ones that have anti-social children looked after by anti-social parents. These families provide a headache for public services out of all proportion to their numbers – and, as any local politician will know, “something must be done”!

The latest “something must be done” initiative from the increasingly authoritarian Ed Balls is the ‘sin bin’ – an extension of intensive family intervention to include 24-hour surveillance of the family’s activities and described by Balls as '…pretty tough and non-negotiable support for families to get to the root of the problem.' And using CCTV inside the home is a good way to achieve this?

My concern with this isn’t that the worst families are identified and targeted with “intensive support” – this approach has been around for a while having started with NCH projects in Scotland and the North West. No, the problem is the manner in which the aggressive, final option has been brought forward – it is presented by Balls as the primary option not as a last resort. Instead of an intensive ‘carrot & stick’ we just get stick – and lots of it!

If we are to begin reducing the number and impact of problem families – we’ll never get rid of them entirely – we need both a long-term and a short-term policy approach. And developing the right policies must start with understanding what goes on “between the ears” of adults in the target families. These families are:

Poorly educated with low skill levels
Lacking in self-esteem, confidence and personal capacity
Often both victims and perpetrators of anti-social behaviour
Dominated by addictive individuals – drink, drugs, violence

I don’t see how sticking a camera in the faces of these families addresses any of these problems – yes, we get a short term fix by stopping them offending. But at the end of any programme they still have the personal problems and challenges that created the problem in the first place.

A policy platform might look a bit like this:

Short-term:

Intensive support including where needed fostering, respite and high quality childcare

Audit of problems such as drink, drugs and violence and provision of appropriate interventions
Provision of personal development coaching – individually, in groups and as whole families

Remedial skills and education for adults and older children plus early support for pre-school children

Use of jobs and training programmes linked to in-work support for those able to secure employment

Application of ASBOs and other available orders as a control mechanism for the programme by allowing enforcement of attendance

Long-term:

Development of small education units in target areas – breaking away from the vast, intimidating schools that dominate education provision in deprived communities

Re-establishing a permanent, physical, estate-based presence for police, probation, social services and other support services

Creating wrap-around family and youth support with a strong presence within the community

Addressing the barriers to work, stable families and behaviour within the benefits system

None of this requires that we treat these families as unruly zoo animals or ignore the need for tough action to prevent bad behaviour. It does require us to deal with the complicated set of problems – drugs, drink, sexual violence, illiteracy, ignorance and ill-humour – that typify these families. And we should remember that most of the families we’re dealing with aren’t bright enough to be “Shameless”!

Why Government shouldn't be let loose with cameras

As I wander round the villages of Bingley Rural, I often hear calls for cameras - whether speed cameras, CCTV or throw-away ones for snapping dog poo. I do understand why people want these things to litter our roads and village centres - people do drive too fast, too often; children do gather "menacingly" outside the co-op, by the war memorial and in the rec; and too many locals seem to think the pavements are provided as a toilet for their pooch.

I've always been a tad cynical about the value of cameras as a means of preventing mildly anti-social and occasionally dangerous activity and I'm sure that cameras affect the way in which people behave. And as Northumbria's then road traffic chief put it:

"Speed cameras don't reduce casualties - they are just for revenue generation. They don't engage and they aren't going to send you a message in the post telling you were driving badly."

The problem isn't that speed cameras don't affect my behaviour - they do - but that their effect on general driver behaviour is erratic and unpredictable. Cameras also have a negative effect on route selection with drivers opting for camera-free routes often involving less safe rural roads or residential streets. And cameras make no allowance for weather, time, road conditions or traffic volumes. But boy do they generate a load of cash!

With CCTV there is silence about the growing evidence suggesting that, not only does the presence of cameras has little or no impact on crime and anti-social behaviour but it may even make our streets less safe. Even the Home Office - CCTV's most enthusiastic advocate - found little or no evidence of the cameras achieving their main aim of reducing crime.

What CCTV does appear to do is make us all feel a little safer, a little less vigilant and still more reliant on fallible technology to do the job of policing out streets. Us Councillors like CCTV because it seems we're doing something - and we get our pictures in the local rag "fighting crime" and responding to local fears!

There is a place for CCTV - it appears to reduce crime in car parks and has some value as a protector of private property. But in public places CCTV has now become almost ubiquitous - making us Brits the most spied on people in the western world. We need urgently to review why we use this camera technology, to look closely as research questioning its value and to reconsider whether intrusive surveillance is really the best way to improve driver behaviour, control anti-social kids and reduce the impact of Saturday night's drunken antics.

I fear that we risk becoming a sad, ineffective and voyeuristic society more interested in technological fixes than human intervention. Our obsession with cameras reflects this - the footage makes great telly but really doesn't reduce crime. We'd be better off investing in better lighting!