A question about the surveillance in England
 

A Danish Political party want a lot more cameras in public areas-they say it would prevent crime and they mentioned England as a very good example

They said crime had decreased in these areas where there was surveillance

Is it true?

I seem to recall an article saying that some type of crime hadn't was not diminished.

Even a FB-friend had posted a story about this and even he are arguing for the same reason-lower crime in England because of more surveillance.

What is the truth here ?

Markus

The police themselves reached the conclusion that CCTV do not radically reduce crime:

http://library.college.police.uk/doc...-CCTV-2013.pdf

However they have certainly improved detection and prosecution rates. I can think of one multiple murderer caught directly via CCTV evidence (Levi Bellfield). There are no doubt countless city centre assailants in street fights identified by camera. They are also of some use in tracking known fugitives as well e.g. at bus or train stations, so they may have some use with apprehending someone after a crime.

It is very difficult to attribute the effects on surveillance on crime simply because there has not been an establishment of an exclusive causality relationship between surveillance and crime.

The presence or absence of surveillance is but one of many factors that may or may not have an effect on criminal activity.

On the other hand, it is very easy for politicians to create a relationship that they can use for their own political purposes.

What is especially risky is to make an inference concerning surveillance and criminal activity based on a correlation between the two.... but people do it all the time.

Correlation does not mean causality or if you want to be a pomopus jerk like me: cum hoc ergo propter hoc :know:

Some type of crime has, from what I understand decreased

Some other type-crime I call spontaneous crime*-hasn't

* An example in spontaneous crime:

Two young men walk down on a street laughing and having a discussion, after a few minutes this laughter turns into a hefty discussion and suddenly one of the guys smack the other one in the face, so hard, the other one get a broken nose

Maybe it has an another name.

Markus

I believe the answer to your question is posted in #2

Hmmm, this was an hot topic not so long ago.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...d-say-MPs.html

Here it is the other way round sometimes - police has to invent crime cases and solve them, because that is the statistic that gets asked from them (ie number of cases solved).

Tis Russia after all :):O:

We had a major row over Police Scotland's (ab)use of it's Stop and Search powers a short time ago:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-31148437

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powers...ce_in_Scotland

Then there was the use of armed response officers (actually few in number) for regular duty. The primary objection there was that those armed officers continued to carry their sidearms whilst on non-firearms duty:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotlan...itics-29444184

Mike.

Sometimes CCTV isn't needed: I heard on the radio yesterday how in Paisley a dog attacked and locked its jaws around a man's gonads. The dog was beaten off by another man with a baseball bat.

The police apparently released a statement later saying that it was fortunate this guy got attacked by the dog in Paisley, since it was one place where it could be guaranteed there'd be a passer-by carrying a baseball bat.