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Criminal tactics and CCTV system design

The implementation of CCTV often follows a risk analysis of some kind, varying from a comprehensive security strategy to an immediate gut feel reaction in response to an event that has just occurred.

Either way, CCTV is seen to be a solution to perceived problems of crime or other safety threats. The use of CCTV has a critical part to play in backing up other security precautions. Often, we can see the reactions or behaviour that people are displaying in response to trying to overcome the other security measures.

A simple example is the way somebody approaches a fence – with intelligent systems or visual analytics functions already building this kind of simple recognition into CCTV operations. This provides an early warning that an event is going to occur or that something is already on the go. In other instances, CCTV may be put up as a direct measure in itself to combat crime – for example to identify people who may be entering or exiting an area.

Proactive vs reactive

Every action has a reaction – and similarly the introduction of a security precaution will result in criminals adapting their approaches or behaviour in order to circumvent the new protection measures. Criminals are amazingly innovative in this context, often thinking of unusual or unexpected approaches to get around security systems.

Given this, the risk assessment that the CCTV installation is based on needs to be carefully thought through. It needs to look not only what is being protected now, but also how future theft is likely to take place. If one is only looking at the security risk at the time, it means that the system will be outdated from the moment people start evaluating it.

Think like a thief

Evaluating the ways in which criminals may compromise your system is not an easy task or a pleasant one. It can introduce a variety of complications into the installation process for example. It also requires a fair amount of lateral thinking.

The old quotation that one needs to think like a criminal in order to catch the criminal does not necessarily come easily to management or security, but is just as important in the technological age as it was years back. It also requires a good understanding of not only the CCTV technology and security systems, but also the way in which the processes occur in the areas to be protected. One can also take nothing for granted.

In the earlier stages of CCTV installations in the UK, drug dealers were dealing right underneath the cameras of one UK town council because the installers had not thought of providing overlapping cover of the cameras themselves. The drug dealers had worked out that the cameras physically could not reach right underneath the poles, and indeed, they presumed the operators themselves would not consider that somebody would have the cheek to do that.

The design of the CCTV system therefore needs to police not only things that are going around in the protected area, but also its own capabilities for operation.

Testing, testing

Criminals test security systems to see what the capabilities are and what they can get away with. Often the testing leads to a stretching of acceptable behaviour or allows somebody to get away with something that is seen as unacceptable but is not deemed important enough to generate a response. Breaking of rules which are not rectified can lead to the creation of more opportunities for illegal acts by offenders.

This can be seen in both public areas and industry. Failure to rectify slightly illegal behaviour often results in this becoming the new norm. It then becomes increasingly difficult to prevent further deterioration of behaviour that, initially, would have been seen as unacceptable.

The deterioration in suburban areas is one example of this where failure to effectively police drinking behaviour outside one or two pubs can lead to widening of the behaviour to other anti-social activities and result in the decline of a whole section of a neighborhood.

While this is a social example, industry suffers from people getting away with non-adherence to procedure, inadequately controlled movement, and failure to document goods – all things that can lead to less control over theft activities. Rather than a security issue, this is a management problem and it is only by effective management control that the integrity of procedures and policies can be maintained.

CCTV provides one major advantage in combating criminal behaviour and picking up alternative theft or other illegal strategies if controls are implemented effectively. Use of CCTV allows one to spot the behaviour in the context of the situation. Even where an operator may not know what the actions of a criminal are directed at, he or she is able to recognise that it does not fit or is not appropriate to a particular situation.

Alternatively, if the operator is sensitised to particular indicators that show incident behaviour is taking place, crime behaviour can be identified because it matches a ‘fingerprint’ of associated illegal actions. One may not know what exactly the criminal is doing, but one can identify that it needs to be looked at because it deviates from what one would expect to happen.

Your CCTV system needs to be designed appropriately and operators need to be aware of these issues in order to provide a sound defence against current and future criminal tactics.

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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