Secret cameras in ‘blighted’ streets (From Swindon Advertiser)
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Secret cameras in ‘blighted’ streets
10:50am Saturday 22nd August 2009 in News
SURVEILLANCE cameras are set to be drafted into town centre troublespots.
CCTV equipment will be temporarily installed in streets blighted by arson, theft and graffiti as part of a major overhaul of central Swindon’s CCTV network.
Five wall-mounted “overt” cameras and several hidden recording devices will be in place by March 2010.
Swindon Community Safety Partnership also aims to have a central hub controlling 40 town centre cameras in place by that date.
CCTV in the town centre is currently controlled by several different organisations, including Stagecoach bus company, the Brunel Centre, InSwindon, Swindon Council and Wiltshire Police.
Richard Palusinski, the head of community safety for the partnership, said: “The new system won’t be a case of Big Brother watching you – it is to tackle issues of crime and disorder in the town while making residents and shoppers feel safe.
“It’s a sensitive subject as there are people who feel that CCTV is intrusive, so it is getting the balance right so surveillance is effective against crime without intruding on law-abiding visitors to the town centre.”
The partnership is in talks about potential hotspots to be covered by cameras.
He said: “These area may be parts of the town that are heavily affected by violent crime, graffiti or purse dippings and aren’t covered by sufficient surveillance.
“It may be that Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service have had a spate of fires started in a particular area and CCTV may be a solution to further incidents.”
Surveillance controllers are now in talks about who will be responsible for the central control facility.
Mr Palusinski said: “The amount of money that will be spent on updating the network will be far outweighed by the savings that will be made by having one central control room instead of having to communicate with several different agencies.
“It may be that Government funding means the project will be cost neutral to Swindon.
“If all goes to plan I hope the project will be complete by the end of this financial year in March 2010.”
The group can also install secret cameras in areas blighted by violent crime.
The five overt’ cameras can be bolted on to a building to cover the area for whatever time is thought necessary while an undisclosed number of hidden cameras can be used if there is a serious threat to life or well-being, he said.
For security reasons the location of the CCTV control room will be kept secret.
Comments(18)
BWB
says...
12:36pm Sat 22 Aug 09
silvergran wrote:I Quite agree with you silvergran.
Good - all those people who worry about big brother always watching them will probably have a moan. If you haven't anything to hide, why worry about being caught on camera! If it helps catch the perpetrators of criminal acts, that's a good thing.
Those who are Law-Abiding should welcome the fact that some-one is watching out for their safety.
Bobfm
says...
12:48pm Sat 22 Aug 09
Mr Blackwell
says...
1:28pm Sat 22 Aug 09
Seriously, until we see some wholesale reform of the judiciary, what's the point?
OldTownTerry
says...
1:40pm Sat 22 Aug 09
gonefishin
says...
4:33pm Sat 22 Aug 09
CCTV is a complete cop-out. It absolves the police from doing their job, which is the protection of people, property, and the prevention of crime. There should be police officers on the beat, not miserable cameras which invariably capture nothing but blurred images of hooded unidentifiable yobbery and are only ever viewed *after* the event. CCTV prevents nothing and is nothing but the last refuge of an inept police force whose role is reduced to 'picking up the mess.' Demand police on the streets preventing crime, not cameras taking pictures of it.
itsamess
says...
12:12am Sun 23 Aug 09
bilzinusa
says...
9:56am Sun 23 Aug 09
Concerned citizens and diffident officials might like to peruse the following official statistics before labelling this "green and pleasant" land of ours law abiding and "safe".
# 6 United Kingdom: 85.5517 per 1,000 people
# 8 United States: 80.0645 per 1,000 people
# 11 Germany: 75.9996 per 1,000 people
# 14 France: 62.1843 per 1,000 people
# 19 Italy: 37.9633 per 1,000 people
# 28 Spain: 22.8867 per 1,000 people
# 45 Greece: 9.6347 per 1,000 people
These figures represent the total amount of crimes committed per 1000 head of population...not good ..is it ?
itsamess
says...
1:32pm Sun 23 Aug 09
Yes good figures and this is Swindon--the town of half empty shopping areas--high unemployment--empty office blocks---half empty trading estates--demolished and derelict buildings--rampant crime and police who can only deal with crime they can issue fixed penalties--all in all we must conclude that there are serious problems here with no sign of improvement
PK
says...
1:37pm Sun 23 Aug 09
Mr Blackwell wrote:Absolutely spot on.
More of our money poured into measures to catch criminals who then end up being let off by our deluded judges.
Seriously, until we see some wholesale reform of the judiciary, what's the point?
What we need is proper deterrents and the punishment fits the crime which has not been happening for a long time hence the high crime rate per capita of population compared to other countries.
First thing to do is scrap the HRA. It only benefits criminals. Second thing to do is, as has been said, put more police on the streets - and I don't mean PCSOs.
If there were proper deterrents, there would be no need for CCTVs, or at least not as many as we have now.
Home Boy
says...
3:31pm Mon 24 Aug 09
And secret cameras help with this balance then do they?
itsamess - "rampant crime"
Seriously, lets not get too carried away here. It is still a fact that Swindon has one of the lowest crime rates of any urban area and a much lower rate than any of the nearby large towns / cities.
Captain Sensible
says...
4:10pm Mon 24 Aug 09
itsamess
says...
5:35pm Mon 24 Aug 09
If you study the crime figures which hide the truth--we are close to the top of real detected crime (solved)--which removes the FPN which are detected and solved at the same time by default.
bilzinusa
says...
8:06pm Mon 24 Aug 09
The internal police report found the million-plus cameras in London rarely help catch criminals.
In one month CCTV helped capture just eight out of 269 suspected robbers.
ooer !
itsamess
says...
11:58pm Mon 24 Aug 09
Home Boy
says...
9:32am Tue 25 Aug 09
itsamess wrote:So you're saying that even though we have a very low crime rate our police are doing an exceptional job in solving crimes? Even more reassuring! As far as I'm aware FPN's aren't issued for the crimes that people are scared of, namely murder, rape, burglary, etc. We are at or near the bottom of the league table in all of these categories.
home-boy
If you study the crime figures which hide the truth--we are close to the top of real detected crime (solved)--which removes the FPN which are detected and solved at the same time by default.
Anyway, this makes interesting reading, as bilzinusa has already mentioned:
http://news.bbc.co.u
k/1/hi/england/londo
n/8219022.stm
itsamess
says...
2:35pm Tue 25 Aug 09
What i am saying is FPNs are widely used for a wide variety of offences that are recorded as crimes and solved--disguising the true figures of real crime. It simply says our police are too busy revenue collecting to tackle the real crime. As the police retain a part of that revenue we would expect that to allow more officers to be recruited to tackle real crime. The Council plays a big part in that too as they have responsibilities to tackle unsociable behaviour and dictate policy. Take a look on the Councils website at the code of conduct for councillors-it suggests police are part of the council?
Home Boy
says...
10:41pm Tue 25 Aug 09
itsamess wrote:To be fair I completely agree with that, FPN's are turning our judicial system on its head. ANPR, CCTV and the like are having the same effect, it's so easy to employ automated policing if you need to boost your detection stats. However, that is in no way specific to Swindon. I've recently also lived in Coventry and Nottingham where the situation is much worse with fixed and mobile speed cameras everywhere and FPNs being issued for all sorts of "offences". Is it surprising that since employing this technique Nottingham has now become the country's most dangerous place to live?
No Home Boy
What i am saying is FPNs are widely used for a wide variety of offences that are recorded as crimes and solved--disguising the true figures of real crime. It simply says our police are too busy revenue collecting to tackle the real crime. As the police retain a part of that revenue we would expect that to allow more officers to be recruited to tackle real crime. The Council plays a big part in that too as they have responsibilities to tackle unsociable behaviour and dictate policy. Take a look on the Councils website at the code of conduct for councillors-it suggests police are part of the council?
But that doesn't cover up that fact that people on here make Swindon out to be crime hotspot of the UK, when in reality we're pretty much the safest large urban areas in .
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silvergran says...
11:21am Sat 22 Aug 09