CCTV
Assessing the impact of CCTV: The Northern Estate case study
The report assesses the impact of CCTV in reducing burglary, vehicle crime, juvenile disorder and criminal damage, and reassuring residents on Northern Estate, in the north east of England.
Title: Assessing the impact of CCTV: The Northern Estate case study
Author: Martin Gill, Jenna Allen, Angela Spriggs, Javier Argomaniz, Sam Waples of the Home Office
Series: Home Office on-line report 13/05
Date published: February 2005
Number of pages: 18
Availability: Download full report 
PDF 175Kb
How effective was CCTV in achieving its objectives?
Increase detection of burglary, vehicle crime, juvenile disorder and criminal damage
Evidence suggests that CCTV was not effective at detecting crimes on the estate. Live monitoring of the estate detected very few incidents, especially those crimes listed as target priorities. In fact, only 16% (5 out of 32) of the total number of recorded crimes on the estate were detected by the cameras over a 12-week period (sample taken from every second week of the month for one year).
Reasons for this may have been:
Control room operators were frequently distracted from the proactive monitoring of the Northern Estate cameras.
No formal means of communication or intelligence was received on a daily basis to direct the surveillance of the Northern Estate cameras.
Lack of interest, knowledge and negative attitudes resulted in the operators displaying little motivation to proactively monitor the Northern Estate cameras.
Increase the deterrence of potential offenders
Crime reduced by 10% following the introduction of CCTV, with marked reductions of 47% for burglary. As CCTV was not successful at detecting crimes, this data suggests that CCTV effectively deterred potential offenders from committing burglary in the target area. This success was due to:
regular publicity of CCTV successes in the local press
the high visibility of the system, e.g. the large dosage of cameras on the estate.
Reduce fear of crime amongst residents and the general public
Feelings of safety significantly increased following the introduction of CCTV, however the proportion of residents who felt that CCTV was actually effective at reducing crime decreased once it had been installed (from 82 percentage points before installation to 70 percentage points afterwards).
Reducing the fear of crime also helped improve the reputation of the estate across the borough and improved the demand for housing. However, the increase in demand was very small and it would take time for the reputation to alter significantly.
To attract future funding for regeneration initiatives
The introduction of CCTV, helped secure funding for a number of initiatives; New Leaf secured housing for single parents; a homeless unit; and managed furnished accommodation. These measures also reduced the workload of estate caretakers allowing them to expand their target area.
Last update: Wednesday, September 20, 2006