CCTV
Assessing the impact of CCTV: the Hawkeye Case Study
This report assesses the effectiveness of CCTV in reducing vehicle crime in all London Underground car parks. The system consisted of 646 fixed static cameras across 60 car parks.
Title: Assessing the impact of CCTV: the Hawkeye Case Study
Author: Martin Gill, Ross Little, Angela Spriggs, Jenna Allen, Javier Argomaniz, Sam Waples of the Home Office
Series: On-line report 12/05
Date published: February 2005
Number of pages: 21
Availability: Download full report 
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How effective was CCTV in achieving its objectives?
To provide 100% coverage of the marked parking spaces across all car parks owned by London Underground Limited
58 out of 60 car parks had 100% coverage of all marked spaces. In order to obtain a clear view of the car registration number each entrance and exit was also covered
To reduce vehicle crime in the car parks by 55% by March 2003
Vehicle crime had reduced by 73% one year after implementation and this was largely achieved by March 2003.
Vehicle crime reduced steadily as more car parks introduced the system, suggesting the installation of CCTV was responsible for the reduction of vehicle crime.
CCTV was more effective in those car parks that had the highest ratio of crimes per parking spaces before the cameras were installed (80% reduction), and less effective where the crime levels were already low (37%).
To improve the level of detections and the provision of intelligence on criminal behaviour
Operators rarely caught any incidents live so were unable to prevent thefts of and from vehicles taking place, but CCTV was good at evidence gathering and allowed the Vehicle Crime Squad to attribute multiple offences to one offender.
Before the CCTV system was installed, intelligence existed for only some crimes, but is now available for all offences.
To improve personal safety for car park users
Clear signage and the installation of help points were 2 aspects of car park design intended to increase feelings of personal safety. The signage was clear and very noticeable. However, it is unlikely that the call points increased feelings of safety. Each car park had one call point installed, but these were installed in the centre of the car parks and were less accessible in the larger car parks. The control room received just one call relating to a car crime during the examination period.
Conclusion
The CCTV system successfully achieved its main objective of reducing vehicle crime within the car parks. This may have been brought about partly by detection as within 9 months of the evaluation period the police seized evidence on 143 incidents, leading to a number of successful arrests.
Static cameras were used to provide complete coverage of all car parks and ensured that evidence was available for every incident. This evidence enabled police to detect crime trends and informed them of the best times to be present at the car parks.
Although the system was broadly successful, its effectiveness could have been increased. Some evidence was lost because of the short retention time of tapes (14 days). There were a number of design shortcomings, which led to the reduced quality of evidence in adverse weather conditions. Car parks were not lit uniformly, so that on occasions night-time evidence was poor and cameras were installed on lampposts, which were prone to shake in the wind.
Last update: Wednesday, September 20, 2006