Advantages And Limitations Of Cctv

Closed circuit television (CCTV) is a method of situational crime prevention, primarily focussing on the criminal offence, as opposed to the offender. CCTV is based upon the principles of the classicist theory of rational offenders. Before committing a crime a rational offender is thought to question themselves about whether they will succeed and whether they will get caught. If an offender believes they are likely to be caught, they are less likely to follow through with committing the crime. CCTV intends to create a higher risk of offenders being caught and therefore reduce the opportunity for offences to occur (Coleman & Norris, 2000). The British Security Industry Authority (BSIA) estimated that there are as many as 5.9 million CCTV cameras

Therefore in research it is important to clarify what is meant by CCTV. In its simplest forms it a static camera connected to a monitor in which images recorded can be viewed. Technology has advanced since then resulting in a multitude of different forms of CCTV such as monitors connected to multiple cameras and PTZ. Cameras can be monitored by different people including police, private security and employees, or can be unmanned; some footage is only looked at after crime has occurred. Another problem comes from what is meant by crime rate. In CCTV studies it is referred to as ’notifiable offences recorded by the police’. However the amount of crimes recorded by the police and the actual rate of crime do not match up (Coleman & Norris, 2000). For the year 2014-2015 the British Crime Survey found that only 42% of crimes reported in the survey had been reported to the police (Office for National Statistics, 2015). Furthermore, of these crimes reported not all of them will be recorded. Police crime data is not necessarily an accurate representation therefore researchers should use an independent measure of crime rate. (Coleman & Norris,