The CCTV sham: 8 out of 10 cameras don't help police fight crime - and trap motorists instead
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Closed-circuit TV cameras supposed to catch violent thugs have been trained on roads instead - to trap and fine motorists who stray into bus lanes.
"Stray"? Either you drive into it, or if you "stray" then you obviously can't control your car and so get off the road!
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A Home Office study of Britain's 4.2million CCTV cameras also revealed they are not proving much help to the police in collaring criminals.
The home office are dirty lying bastards! But ooh a report we can use.
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More than eight out of ten of the cameras - the UK has the largest number in the world - do not provide satisfactory images for officers to use.
In many cases, a suspect can be recognised only if police already know who they are.
Firstly, what's "more than"?
Secondly, what does "in many cases" mean. Give us some numbers, how many images did they pick out last year, how many were useful (as in perhaps crap but recognised) and how many were just plain crap.
To be honest I did read a similar story on either inq or reg so I believe it's probably true (with some Mail spin of course).
Without reading the report I wouldn't like to comment, though it does sound bad.
Anywho..
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Paul Smith, founder of drivers' pressure group SafeSpeed, said: "Drivers will be infuriated. We are seeing local authorities with stretched budgets profiting from these cameras by fining drivers.
"They are often very minor offences with little to do with safety. This is about raising revenues and nothing to do with combating crime."
Drivers who don't break the law need not be infuriated.
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Phil Booth, of the NO2ID civil liberties campaign, said: "This is both a farce and a national scandal. The cameras are delivering no meaningful results for the safety of the average citizen. It seems more like a snooper's charter to spy on the motorist, while the criminal gets away with it."
Well how do we know that? All the Mail has banged on about so far is how there's a lot of them, most are useless and that the motorist is unfairly picked on. There are no figures as to the good cameras have done. In fact, there's almost no text to that effect either. Unless we are to seriously believe that all 4 million cameras are totally useless and not one of them has produced a result, there will be some figures. So where are they Dacre??
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Other damning findings of the report, the National CCTV Strategy, include the fact that many cameras in public places such as shopping centres and transport hubs are designed to "monitor crowds, slips, trips and falls" rather than detect crime.
Cos we all know that crime never happens in shopping centres or transport hubs. They can however answer a question of "did she slip or did someone push her", for example. Perhaps not an ideal use of money I agree, but they do have uses.
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The report added that CCTV played a crucial role in the investigation into the July 7 suicide bombings, but went on: "The majority of cameras have not been placed in positions which may be required for the prevention and detection of serious and organised crime and counter-terrorism."
Wait I'm confused, I thought they were absolutely everywhere.
I can't really be arsed to pull apart all the comments, I'll just pick this one:
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Wow, imagine that. What CAN they be for then?
- Suraci, Exeter, UK
Watching you have sex
(sorry)
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