The impact of cameras on crime

In many ways, the security industry has become the video surveillance industry. It has become the dominant technology in many end-users' environments -- from the small user level all the way to enterprise user level.

Walk into your local 24-hour petrolstation and you'll find a basic intrusion alarm system that they set if they ever leave, but running all the time is usually a basic video camera and recorder solution set up to capture an image of a criminal.

Chances are that you will also find a camera in that looks  directly down on the till.

Go into an airport and you'll find plenty of electronic door access systems, but if you look up and count the cameras, you quickly realize that cameras have come to dominate the transportation environment.

When flying these days take the time to count the amount of cameras scattered around the airport terminal I was stuck in a slow-moving line at the airport recently and I counted over 60 surveillance cameras, some of them just a hands-width away from another cameras.

Look over into the world of law enforcement, and you'll find cameras inside police vehicles, mounted on street lights, pointing at roadways and tunnels and watching over transit stations.

So, apparently we're camera crazy, and many of you who are equipment installers are making a good living installing this stuff. But there's always been a little nagging question in our industry: Do cameras really matter?

Why, yes, they definitely matter, we'd say, because how else are you going to get visual evidence of a crime for your investigation? But do they really matter, do they actually prevent crime?

That was a tougher question, and the answer is yes. CCTV cameras have the ability to prevent or at the very least help in displacing crime. Do you have a CCTV system installed at your homeor place of business?

 

Source :  securityinfowatch.com ; GEOFF KOHL - 09-30-2011

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