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CCTV needs an effective response function

CCTV strategies vary from reactive which are directed at reviewing video after the fact, and proactive aimed at live detection of people committing offences.

Either way, the detection of CCTV-based offences needs to be accompanied by a credible follow up to apprehend the suspects, or the CCTV system will be discredited as an effective crime prevention tool.

Reactive systems are designed to provide information that can lead to the identification and apprehension of people involved in offences through follow-up investigation and tracing of the personnel involved. This requires a solid system for the management of information gathering and integration, and effective resources and methods of investigation, and apprehension. Where CCTV information cannot lead to the catching of offenders, the worth of having the system must obviously be questioned.

In the traffic

The use of cameras to police traffic offences shows a very similar effect to CCTV and one that has potential for immense concern. In principle, the expansion of traffic offences to police anything from speed to driving through red traffic lights allows a huge increase in the enforcement of crime footprint.

However, the policing of such systems through roadblocks does not sufficiently address the proactive need to enforce traffic laws that include moving violations responsible for many deaths that are frequently seen on the country's roads.

Roadblocks address only a small number of potential violators, while causing inconvenience and cost to many other legal road users. Illegal drivers, unlicensed vehicles, and those guilty of repeated offences are simply slipping through the camera-based system. There is also the frequent occurrence of fake licence plates, which further complicate the lives of honest citizens, including myself who had to account for a car proceeding through a red traffic light using the number plate of my trailer, which had been parked in my garage for the last six months.

With 30% payment rates for traffic fines being mentioned for Johannesburg, the question is whether those responsible people who are licensed and take payment seriously are the only people who are actually being policed, while the rest of the population do what they want with little chance of being apprehended.

While it is easy to comment on public policing systems, the truth is that many private systems using CCTV are likely to suffer from the same issues. I have already seen CCTV video of people in balaclavas ransacking a site with no chance of being caught.

The proactive approach

Proactive surveillance, on the other hand, provides the means to catch offenders in the act on site through the live detection of criminal behaviour. However, if the response time is out of line with the time, the offenders are likely to take to commit the offences and escape the area, then having a response is often almost useless, besides providing some emotional support to the people affected by the crime.

I have seen a number of sites where the time taken to respond to a particular incident is so long that it effectively makes the CCTV system redundant. I have also had a couple of operators on training courses who were so motivated and concerned about the speed of response to the incident that they have just detected, that they have run out the control room to the area where they have seen the offenders and apprehended them personally to ensure that these criminals could not get away.

The easier solution is to have a response function that is designed to meet the detection and response needs of the CCTV system one has just paid thousands or millions of hard-earned currency for.

Lack of response

The installation of CCTV facilities without a competent response is not only pointless, it has the potential to actively discredit the worth of CCTV in the eyes of the people affected. In an earlier article I mentioned a term used by David Davis of 'scarecrow policing'. Quite simply, when the scarecrow loses its credibility, the birds carry on as normal and eat the resources it is supposed to be protecting - human society is no different.

When asked a couple of years ago what the most effective method of reducing crime was, the public in England answered the 'bobby on the beat'. This is because not only do the bobbies reduce the chances of crime occurring, but they are in a position to immediately respond and do something about it. Unless CCTV is matched by a credible response to respond and successfully apprehend suspects committing offences, it stands the chance of losing a great deal of its credibility.

Dr Craig Donald is a human factors specialist in security and CCTV. He is a director of Leaderware, which provides instruments for the selection of CCTV operators, X-ray screeners and other security personnel in major operations around the world. He also runs CCTV Surveillance Skills and Body Language, and Advanced Surveillance Body Language courses for CCTV operators, supervisors and managers internationally, and consults on CCTV management. He can be contacted on +27 (0)11 787 7811 or [email protected]

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