NCJ Number
185390
Journal
British Journal of Criminology Volume: 40 Issue: 4 Dated: Autumn 2000 Pages: 692-709
Editor(s)
Geoffrey Pearson
Date Published
2000
Length
18 pages
Annotation
Great Britain has seen very substantial public and private investment in open-street closed circuit television (CCTV) surveillance in the 1990's; part of the justification for this has been the assumed ability of CCTV to reduce both crime and fear of crime.
Abstract
Surveys were conducted in Glasgow, Scotland, in January 1994, again in January 1995, and finally in January 1996, to assess crime fear levels experienced by locally resident visitors to a city center before and after the installation of CCTV and to compare their responses to those given by locally resident visitors to two control locations. The first survey occurred 9 months before CCTV became operational, while the second and third surveys took place 3 and 15 months after. Prior to inquiring about attitudes toward and perceptions of CCTV, interviewers asked respondents how often they visited the location, how safety they felt there, whether they would ever avoid certain areas, and whether they worried they might be a crime victim. Most respondents reported support for the installation of open-street CCTV and most indicated CCTV made them feel safer. However, when actual as opposed to prospective feelings of safety were compared over time, there was no improvement after the installation of CCTV. Further, respondents believed that CCTV was better than the police at detecting crime but that police patrols were more effective than CCTV in making people feel safer. One way of interpreting the findings was to suggest that Glasgow residents, along with many sociologists, preferred natural over electronic surveillance. 41 references and 7 tables