Security Oxford

There can be no doubt that in today’s society, CCTV surveillance is something we not only expect but, to a certain point, we have almost come to accept too. According to the Daily Mail, there is one CCTV camera for every 32 people in Britain. That’s undoubtedly a lot of cameras but, I wonder, just how many are actually watching us as we go about our daily business? If you are footer or rioter sitting in a detention centre then you might be forgiven for thinking that they are all watching…all of the time. The truth is further away of course.

It’s funny thing but if you sift through old newspaper cuttings you will find that, just a few years ago, police experts were decrying the use of CCTV cameras as a ‘fiasco’ and a waste of the supposed bilions of pounds worth of investment. It seems that cameras were not catching criminals. Why?Because, at the time, there was a lack of trained police officers and trawling through captured footage was deemed’hard work’.

Skip forward a few years and the picture changes. Now the issue is not wheather the cameras are working because we know they are and they clearly catch criminals;just ask the looters.

Now the BSIA has limped into action and announced there has been an increase in the’demand for security’ since the riots. This request, it says, has been for both security personnel as well as CCTV systems. But, while there has certainly been some well publicised stories of individual looters being caught on camera, I am still searching for the first report of a security guard actually apprehending a rioter.

With almost 800 suspects on remand, many of whom ere caught on camera, it’s hard to deny the success of CCTV during the recent disturbances. true, having cameras around our towns and cities did not prevent the event from happening…but then nor did the presence of the police. What it did manage to achieve, through, was in spotting the culprits and helping bring them to justice.

So, it’s more like fiesta time for CCTV rather than a fiasco. It’s just a pity that our industry seems to have ignored this; there has been a very hushed cry from electronic security sector over this success story. We should be shouting about the benefits of good camera-based security system; after all it’s an investment well spent as it doesn’t sleep, doesn’t need feeding and it won’t eat into other office resources.