Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> Grits for Breakfast

Criminal Law

: Grits for Breakfast

CCTV proponents should abandon claims that surveillance cameras reduce crime

John Honovich, a consultant on video surveillance and biometrics, says in a meta-analysis of recent studies of CCTV effectiveness that the industry needs to change its marketing pitch. Particularly it must stop promising the public CCTV can reduce crime, primarily because virtually all the research on public CCTV use shows that it fails to reduce crime. As a result, Honovich makes the following suggestion for CCTV proponents:Recommendation: Abandon emphasis on general crime reductionProponents of public CCTV systems should abandon the emphasis and claim that CCTV systems can reduce crime generally. Even if proponents ignore the fact that studies demonstrate this, clinging to this claim only creates greater debate and dissension.By abandoning this claim, it will heal some of the major discord and allow all parties to focus on better uses of CCTV...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on July 09, 2008 (boomark / email).