London Police Credit CCTV Cameras With Six Solved Crimes Per Day 280
stoilis writes "CCTV cameras across London help solve almost six crimes a day, the Metropolitan Police has said. According to the article, 'the number of suspects who were identified using the cameras went up from 1,970 in 2009 to 2,512 this year. The rise in the number of criminals caught also raises public confidence and counters bad publicity for CCTV.'"
Oh boy, what's that cost per crime down to? (Score:4, Informative)
A large proportion of the cash has been In London, where an estimated £200 million so far has been spent on the cameras. This suggests that each crime has cost £20,000 to detect.
From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/6082530/1000-CCTV-cameras-to-solve-just-one-crime-Met-Police-admits.html [telegraph.co.uk] (1.5 years ago)
Re:Oh boy, what's that cost per crime down to? (Score:4, Informative)
Actually: The Met said among the 2,512 suspects caught this year, four were suspected murderers, 23 rapists and sex attackers and five wanted gunmen.
So the reality is 32 quality collars. Which makes it about £6 million each to detect.
SOLVED crimes? Or 'DETECTED' crimes (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It doesn't make sense, does it? (Score:2, Informative)
The Met are proven liars at the highest level:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1496382/Shot-Brazilian-did-not-jump-barrier-and-run.html
The police in the UK have lost even the middle classes and are very unpopular.
The spread of CCTV under Nu Labour is just another illustration of how close socialism is to fascism. The UK is a turn-key fascist state and we will probably tip into that once we fall off the finance cliff.
Re:Cost:Benefit? (Score:2, Informative)
The "right to a family" has allowed a failed asylum seeker, who murdered a little girl by dragging her along a road under the car he was druving without a licence, tax or insurance, to claim that deporting him would be such an infringement of his human rights, it can't happen - and the judges agreed.
This is despite the fact he is no longer in a relationship with the childrens mother.
Steve
Re:Cost:Benefit? (Score:2, Informative)
It's also possible that the ineffectiveness of the justice system forces the people to never bother to report crimes to begin with, which in turn artificially forces the crime rate to go down. After all, the statistics only cover the ones which are officially reported.
That's one reason that the most trustworthy crime rate is the murder rate. Very few murders in the first world are not reported.
The murder rate in Texas is much higher than in the UK (citation somewhere in the internet...).
The overall crime rate in the UK is supposed to be similar to that in the US, it's mainly the murder rate that is different. (Although, as stated above, the other rates are hard to compare.)
Re:Cost:Benefit? (Score:4, Informative)
The first point you make is true, at least if you consider non-custodial sentencing to be lax, although I don't agree with you that it's a bad thing; in the UK at least prison governors have repeatedly stated that imposing short custodial sentences leads to increased reoffending because it disrupts the person's life, often leaving them unemployed and homeless on their release, but doesn't give them enough time inside to receive useful training or counselling.
The second point, though, is the one I really wanted to respond to, as it is a complete untruth. UK law, to summarise enormously, allows anyone to respond to a perceived threat with a reasonable amount of force. It also accepts that people cannot be expected to weigh the amount of force required exactly in the heat of the moment and therefore gives them a great deal of leeway. What's more, the CPS guidelines, as well as containing the general proposition that prosecution should only be undertaken where it is in the public interest, also states that "it is important to ensure that all those acting in good faith to defend themselves, their family, their property, or in the prevention of crime or the apprehension of offenders are not prosecuted for their actions". It is only where the degree of force used is manifestly disproportionate (as in the case some time ago of a 20-something-year-old man who was pushed on the shoulder by a pensioner and "defended himself" by punching the man to death) or where it has crossed the line from self-defence to vigilantism that a prosecution will even be begun, let alone a conviction secured.
The tabloid media regularly stir up controversy by claiming that people are being prosecuted for defending themselves from violent criminals. I am yet to encounter a single case of this nature in which a person has been sentenced for what was in actuality self defence (take, for example, the Tony Martin case, portrayed by the tabloids as reasonable self defence, but where even a cursory inspection of the case report shows that the killing was pre-meditated and that his claims in court had been shown to be untrue; or the recent case where the media claimed a man had been imprisoned for defending his family, but where the "defence" took place after all danger had passed, when the father had rounded up some friends, armed himself and beaten the assailant almost to death on the street). Repeated Government reviews have come to the same conclusion; there is simply no foundation to the claim that victims are prosecuted for reasonable self defence.