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June 21, 2007
Criminals simply avoid cameras
Inspired by the Cincinnati Post:
Its something sociologists have long recognized, but its talked about very little. When cameras go up in one area, some crime may just move to another area. The term for this is displacement.
"We've never really gotten anything useful from them," said Cincinnati Police Capt. Kimberly Frey. With hopes that they would be a boon for crime-fighting, the city first installed video cameras in 1998. By 2000, their utility was already in doubt. A review by the University of Cincinnati that year found the devices accomplished little beyond shifting criminals out of areas under the lens into unwatched spots, where they resumed their illegal activities.
While the police captain is shaking his head, the academic review provides some key insights. Some of results of the study were published in Security Journal by Mazerolle, Hurley, and Chamlin (I believe the Cincinnati study was done for David Hurley's dissertation):
Our study of CCTV in Cincinnati found that surveillance cameras create somewhat of an initial deterrent effect in the month, perhaps two months, following implementation. We conclude that erecting signs to notify people about the cameras could possibly increase the level of deterrence of CCTV. Signs about CCTV cameras in operation would also address some of the fairness issues raised by civil libertarians. We also suggest that shifting CCTV cameras around on a frequent basis could solve two dilemmas: first, it would increase the number of hotspots under surveillance, and hence remove some of the inequities observed in CCTV deployment; second, short and periodic, as opposed to permanent, deployment of CCTV cameras would capitalize upon some of the initial deterrent effects of the cameras that are observed in our data.
The recommendations seem solid to me and should be considered by those deploying cameras. (And this shows the value of allowing academics to study the deployment of crime fighting technology).
**UPDATE** SORRY FOR THE DOUBLE POSTING - I posted this last year, but for some reason there was still a draft on my computer
Posted by rshah at June 21, 2007 11:08 PM
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