Fighting Crime From Above?

Image source www2.dijon.inra.fr/

China Daily had an interesting article about surveillance cameras in China's Guangdong province.

GUANGZHOU: A new province-wide intelligent video surveillance system comprising 1 million cameras is putting criminals in the frame in Guangdong province.

The system, which will be fully operational next year, will automatically alert police about fights, robberies and other major crimes and incidents, according to a police officer from Guangdong provincial department of public security on Friday.

The cameras are being installed on major highways, busy streets, railway stations, bus terminals, piers and other public places in the province.

Social security will be constantly monitored in major public places in the province where the crime rate is higher than many regions in the Chinese mainland.

"The new video surveillance system is expected to cast an inescapable net that will help reduce the crime rate in the prosperous province," said the police officer, who declined to be named.

Guangdong has already installed more than 900,000 video cameras in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhongshan, Dongguan, Chaozhou, Zhuhai and other major cities in the Pearl River Delta, which borders Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions.

And, even though the system is not fully up to speed yet, it has helped police detain more than 10,000 suspects since the beginning of the year. More than 18,000 cases of street crime have been prevented or fought, the officer added.

The cameras will be part of an advanced video network that will link local police crime-reporting centers to every major public place in the region's cities.

Many locals have welcomed the cameras.

"The new intelligent video surveillance system will certainly help deter suspects from committing crimes in public places," said Chen Wensi, a white-collar worker in Guangzhou. "It should be good news for most of the Cantonese people."

Law and order had been a problem in the province, added Chen, who had two mobile phones stolen in two months earlier this year.

In another development, Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, has equipped all of its public buses with surveillance cameras to deter pickpockets and robbers.

The cameras are fitted to the front, middle and rear of all the city's 8,000 public buses.

And there has been a notable reductin in the number of pickpocket, robbery and sexual harassment cases since the video surveillance system was brought into operation in the southern metropolis this year.

The officials in the article made a few claims:

• The system has helped detain 10,000 suspects
• 18,000 street crimes have been fought
• Pickpocketing, sexual harassment, and robberies are down on public buses

While the numbers quoted in this article appear high (10,000 detained,  18,000 fought), they are quite low in relation to the number of cameras installed – one million.  These statistics also do not include conviction rates which will certaintly be much lower.  Perhaps even as low as the UK, which is only able to convict one criminal for every 1,000 cameras installed.

The official in this article also claims there has been crime reduction success in public buses.  I agree and believe it's logical to assume there is potential for surveillance cameras to be effective in buses (and possibly taxis).  This may be due to the fact people are in closer quarters, are aware of the cameras, and there is also potential for the higher camera image quality due to the fixed distance factor.  However, this fact has yet to be proven by academics.

It would be nice to see a government report some statistics on the use of privately owned cameras.  When this happens, a comparison can be made between the two sectors in the two spaces (public cameras – public spaces / private cameras – private spaces).  I believe private cameras have the potential to be many times more effective than public cameras, but we will never know this until police modify their reporting standards to include effectiveness stats from the private sector.

Related: Police seek men after duo attacked on bus