CCTV: Lessons from a surveillance culture

We were invited by the European Forum for Urban Safety () to provide an overview of research lessons regarding CCTV effectiveness, based on our extensive evidence gleaned from eight evaluation projects and EPSRC-funded research. This pan-European initiative was tasked with creating a European Charter for CCTV project development and use. 

Project timeframe

This research took place in 2010.

Project aims

The project aimed to:

  • share invaluable learning from the experience of CCTV surveillance in the UK with other nations, including reflections on whether legal and political oversight have kept pace with the scale of deployment.
  • explore the effectiveness of CCTV in terms of solving public area crime and disorder problems and the key role of evaluation
  • improve the process of policy transfer, develop better practice and clarify issues pertaining to CCTV deployment, ensuring evidence-led policy development.

Project findings and impact

Research was able to emphasise the importance of oversight, monitoring and the effective integration into other community safety strategies and policing systems. It warned against treating CCTV as a ‘magic bullet’ and stressed that it was a tool rather than a cure-all. The complex and varied roles and purposes of CCTV systems: intelligence development, incident management, order maintenance were acknowledged in addition to the desire for situational crime reduction, via prevention or deterrence.

Our report, Evaluating CCTV: Lessons from a Surveillance Culture, helped underpin the European CCTV Charter and was incorporated into the supporting EFUS documentation when the charter was formally launched in Rotterdam. Many members of the EFUS partnership have adopted the EU charter.

Research team

Professor Peter Squires

Output

Paper Prepared for the Final Conference of the European Forum for Urban Safety: Citizens, Cities and Video-Surveillance Programme and for the EFUS CCTV Charter launched in Rotterdam, May 2010

Partners