They also tend to be “reactive” not “proactive” which gives the oportunity for evolution by the target.

If you put a CCTV system up somewhere you initially displace the crime else where (apart from those not acting rationaly). If measured at this point in time the system is declaired a success.

Eventually however the criminal learns that by wearing two or three light weight coats with hoods, not only do they conceal their face, they also can when out of sight of the CCTV change their coat so significantly reducing the ability of the Police etc to pick them up (this is the behaviour practiced by Steaming Gangs on the railway network in south London). IF the system is measured at this point it is shown to have at best a marginal effect.

The result is that the smarter criminal has out evolved the security system (in this case CCTV). The less smart criminal gets aprehended and hopefully removed from the pool of criminals at large in society.

It is sort of like an arms race you have the people responsable for security-v-criminals. The former are usually limited by the on going costs (staff, maintanence), the latter by the need to gain benifit from their illicit activities.

Providing a sudden increase in funding for a new / improved “technology” to the security side initially gives an advantage to them, however the criminals quickly evolve their methods and the effective value of the technology quickly depreciates and the status quo returns to a point only marginaly different than before the funding. If the system is costly to run then you have a significant loss that has to be made up (more council tax?)

The unpalatable (to polititians and technologists) solution to the problem, as has been voiced in the past is to have in place a security system that has the ability to evolve as quickly as the criminals. This basically boils down to well trained humans on the ground.

Because of this using technology to replace people on the ground will always reach a point where it is nolonger effective for the job it was designed to do. Where technology does work is where it augments the people on the ground making them more effective.

The real hidden problem is once you have a system in place that is no-longer able to do the job it was designed for what do you do with it. Invariably it is not scrapped but suffers mission/function creep at which point personal fredoms are usually encroched upon.

An example of this is speed traps, drivers quickly learnt to slow down where the fixed traps where and speed up again when past. Due to the expense of the system it became “self financing” with fines paying for new equipment. The result the systems proliferated untill the general populace realised that they had become a new TAX supporting a new and ineffective buracratic system. The unfortunate hiden side effect was that they actually made roads more dangerous with drivers speeding up and slowing down rapidly etc.

From the article:

Coun Mike Dixon, who represents the Market Ward, said the cameras were an expensive addition but were “money well spent”

The same article also reports that our local Council Tax is to be increased by four percent.

In the light of this study, one might reasonably ask whether this really was money well spent.

Does CCTV decrease or displace crime? At first look it seems that displacement evidence is stronger than reduction evidence.

It is 107 pages of study, so careful with the print button.