NCJ Number
215374
Journal
Crime Prevention and Community Safety Volume: 8 Issue: 1 Dated: February/2006 Pages: 1-16
Date Published
February 2006
Length
16 pages
Annotation
This article presents research findings on the effectiveness of Redeployable CCTV (RCCTV) surveillance.
Abstract
Results from a national evaluation of CCTV that included two redeployable units in two different locations indicated that RCCTV was not effective at either reducing crime or reducing the fear of crime among citizens. In fact, in one area where RCCTV was employed, overall crime and all individual offense types except violence actually increased during the RCCTV deployment. One possible explanation is that RCCTV increased the detection of offenses, but not the actual rate of crime. The case studies highlighted the fact that a lack of time and resources prevented the systems under examination from being implemented as intended. The findings suggest that if RCCTV is to be successful in the future, the management of the system must be reconsidered, from system design to control room operation. The research under examination involved two case studies in which police-recorded crimes and incidents, as well as citizen fear of crime, were measured in two separate areas deploying RCCTV. Public attitudes toward crime and CCTV were assessed both before and after the RCCTV systems were installed and police-recorded crimes and incidents were analyzed for 1 year before and after RCCTV implementation. Tables, figure, notes, references