Wednesday 4 November 2009

CCTV Camera Numbers

Another interesting snippet via 'What Do They Know', a list of the numbers of CCTV cameras by ward in the city.

We last looked at CCTV when JoCo nodded through a new installation in Forest Fields in defiance of local views or any meaningful democratic input.

There are some interesting numbers in there. Both Wollaton wards have only 3 cameras each and they are only used for traffic management. On the other hand, Radford and Park has 361, all but one of which are used for 'crime prevention'. Other high scorers are Dales with 257, Dunkirk and Lenton with 236 and St Ann's with 114. Clifton South has none.

I can't help noticing that the high scorers tend to have relatively large ethnic minority populations...

The response also reveals the running costs of the CCTV systems and the rather salient fact that NCC currently has absolutely no strategy for CCTV, they just make it up as they go along presumably.

What about Bestwood you ask? Have a guess. Couple of hundred maybe? No. Bestwood has FOUR cameras. Just four. That's Bestwood, the home of a major Nottingham crime family, that was the scene of major riots when the leaders of that family were jailed, the area of the city that was said to have been abandoned by law enforcement agencies as that family took over the estate.

Such a gang of criminals would obviously have been keen to avoid CCTV being set up on their patch. Makes you wonder if they had any influence with anybody.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting also that the areas with most cameras are still the one's in the city with the highest levels of crime.

Does this prove that the cameras are needed or does it show that they don't actually work?

Andy said...

It might also suggest that crime will be detected where you actually go and look for it.