News RSS Feed Send your news, pictures & videos


Residents to monitor CCTV in Sussex

1:10pm Thursday 18th March 2010 in


Sussex Police will be the first force in the country to have members of the public monitoring its CCTV.

Twelve independent, fully trained and vetted volunteers will visit each police CCTV monitoring centre in Sussex once a month to look at the usage of more than 400 council-owned cameras.

Currently, 400 cameras stream live to bases in Brighton and Haywards Heath and can be searched from police stations around the county.

There are 87 cameras in Brighton and Hove, not just centrally but in areas including Whitehawk, Moulsecoomb and Portslade.

The scheme is designed to “provide an effective independent oversight of the public place CCTV which is managed by Sussex Police”.

Dr Laurie Bush, chairman of Sussex Police Authority (SPA), said he hoped the scheme would help CCTV become more widely accepted.

Will the scheme make CCTV more accepted by members of the public? Tell us what you think below.

Comments(18)

Darling2 says...
2:14pm Thu 18 Mar 10

No. How many actual Police Officers could be put on the streets for the cost of 400 (!) cctv cameras? With 87 alone in Brighton it wouldn't suprise if me cameras outnumbered police on the beat at any one given time.
We've turned into a police state and relinquished the freedoms so hard fought for in WW2. Hitler will be laughing his nogging off at us all.
England is dead. Long live England.

Report this post »    Register/Log In »

ambassador says...
2:17pm Thu 18 Mar 10

CCTV has a place in policing but I believe the cost is now disproportionate to the benefit.

The costs of running the CCTV network is substantial. But there are so many cameras that the system is not now being properly monitored by police in order to get the full benefits.

Moreover, if police do not have the resources to react to any incident observed on CCTV then it is self-defeating.

Allowing members of the public to 'inspect' CCTV rooms is a positive step to build public confidence but the real issue with CCTV is whether it is being used effectively and I suggest this will not be determined by such visits.

Report this post »    Register/Log In »

ambassador says...
2:34pm Thu 18 Mar 10

Darling2 wrote:
No. How many actual Police Officers could be put on the streets for the cost of 400 (!) cctv cameras? With 87 alone in Brighton it wouldn't suprise if me cameras outnumbered police on the beat at any one given time.
We've turned into a police state and relinquished the freedoms so hard fought for in WW2. Hitler will be laughing his nogging off at us all.
England is dead. Long live England.
The answer to your question is 'several'. But CCTV does have a place and is complimentary, often recording good evidence for court prosecutions.

There are FAR MORE cameras in B'ton & Hove than there are officers patrolling at ANY given time.

But - we have not turned into a 'police state', that is reactionary rhetoric.

Do some research and you will see the UK is not a police state by any stretch of the imagination.

If you do not break the law you have little to fear.

The real issue is the one you raise about police numbers.

There are a number of other issues which need dealing with, such as DNA retention but that does not make us a police state.

Mind you, they are watching bibble - be warned bibble!

Report this post »    Register/Log In »

caeos says...
5:12pm Thu 18 Mar 10

this sounds like the saferstreets campaign that was "knocked" by the SIA and ICO..

Report this post »    Register/Log In »

bibble says...
6:22pm Thu 18 Mar 10

"Twelve independent, fully trained and vetted volunteers "
.
In other words, a typical police stitch up. The only people who will get past their vetting are police toadies. The people are not independent. They are plants.

Report this post »    Register/Log In »

bibble says...
6:27pm Thu 18 Mar 10

Darling2 wrote:
No. How many actual Police Officers could be put on the streets for the cost of 400 (!) cctv cameras? With 87 alone in Brighton it wouldn't suprise if me cameras outnumbered police on the beat at any one given time. We've turned into a police state and relinquished the freedoms so hard fought for in WW2. Hitler will be laughing his nogging off at us all. England is dead. Long live England.
We didn't relinquish our freedoms. They were taken away from us by people like the police. Another reason why so few people today have any respect for them.

Report this post »    Register/Log In »

ambassador says...
6:50pm Thu 18 Mar 10

Go and live in North Korea bibble - then you would have something to babble on about.

Report this post »    Register/Log In »

corruptive says...
7:27pm Thu 18 Mar 10

So we have a commentator above who complains that we are a "police state" whilst in the next sentence complaining that there aren't enough police on the streets! Isn't orwellian doublethink marvellous? :-D

Security-word: plus-good

Report this post »    Register/Log In »

cheezburger says...
7:55pm Thu 18 Mar 10

If the problem is that there arent enough observers of these cams then why not just open them up to everyone? Have a site where everyone cam browse these cameras. If anyone sees a crime they can flag it, or if very serious they can call the police with the cams location, time etc. And before Bibble says it will turn us all into a nation of snoopers then remember that you could watch how police behave on the streets as well.

Report this post »    Register/Log In »

corruptive says...
9:24pm Thu 18 Mar 10

cheezburger, your plan would be fine so long as everyone watching a security camera had a CCTV cam monitoring *them*, to check that they were watching inappropriately - otherwise, who watches the watchers?
This would also have the added benefit of allowing people to watch themselves with glorious trains of 'howlaround' video feedback, just like the original opening titles of 'Doctor Who'.

Security word: eyes-eyes

Report this post »    Register/Log In »

ambassador says...
11:52pm Thu 18 Mar 10

bibble wrote:
"Twelve independent, fully trained and vetted volunteers "
.
In other words, a typical police stitch up. The only people who will get past their vetting are police toadies. The people are not independent. They are plants.
You're paranoid!

Report this post »    Register/Log In »

ambassador says...
11:54pm Thu 18 Mar 10

corruptive wrote:
So we have a commentator above who complains that we are a "police state" whilst in the next sentence complaining that there aren't enough police on the streets! Isn't orwellian doublethink marvellous? :-D

Security-word: plus-good
Almost all his arguments are flawed.

Report this post »    Register/Log In »

ambassador says...
11:59pm Thu 18 Mar 10

Interesting idea!

Unfortunately it would not work - not least because we would face having 'nutters' like bibble watching us, who would probably jump in his car and go rushing to the scene and hand out his own form of 'impartial' justice.

God help us.

Report this post »    Register/Log In »

kumquat says...
8:23am Fri 19 Mar 10

I've talked about this before on here, but i've actually visited CCTV rooms across the country as part of some work that i was doing. They work well depending on several different variables including the type of crime, the quality of the staff monitoring them and the links with other crime tackling agencies and businesses around the area. For example, if shops have a watch scheme and radios with direct links to the cctv control room they can report someone stealing and the police can immediately monitor them on cctv. If they don't, then it takes longer as they phone the police who then have to contact the cctv people who then have to scan around the area trying to find them. They work particularly well with car crime, virtually eliminating it in most car parks where they are set up because they are a real deterrent. As ambassador says though they have to be complementary to other crime tackling work going on. On another note, some of you may be interested to know this. In Scotland street crime has gone down as a result of the smoking ban becasue more people smoking outside pubs are reporting seeing it. Amazing - good old fashioned community spirit.

Report this post »    Register/Log In »

ambassador says...
12:34pm Fri 19 Mar 10

kumquat,

You make some good, informed and pertinent points.

Would that all on this site had the same intellect.

Interesting point about the issue in Scotland. It highlights an issue that has long concerned me.

Society has become very inward looking, people have become very self-obsessed and where they do interface with others it is very competitive and often aggressive.

This allows crime to prosper and such things as e-contact (social networking, etc.) has done nothing to help this situation.

People are too quick to criticise, the www allows this and the www also informs people in a way which often makes them think they are experts.

All of this means that 'we' have all become experts - who won't actually challenge someone committing a crime or support the police (flawed as they are) in tackling crime.

Yet we want the police to perform flawlessly.

'We' are too quick to blame yet few people have ANY IDEA how complex policing has now become. A simple credit card, ebay or financial fraud can take up MANY, many hours of police time - taking officers off the street to speak on the phone to financial organisations and do www research.

Old fashioned crime usually meant officers were out and about in the course of an investigation and thus visible and available.

Sorry, this post is a bit too philosophical and long.

Report this post »    Register/Log In »

kumquat says...
1:06pm Fri 19 Mar 10

Very good post. The key point you made i think is about being too quick to blame. Very true. What i found in shop crime was that there was a whole middle ground that businesses and police would not enter. Both blaming each other for the crime that befell the businesses when it simply needed somebody to bring them together and tackle it. I think this CCTV exercise is thinking in the right territory but what i'd prefer to see is members of the public being brought in to observe how it is used rather than monitor it. Then you could bring different people each month and educate them on how and for what it is used.

Report this post »    Register/Log In »

VoodooGangbanger says...
3:02pm Fri 19 Mar 10

this is the worst violation of a human right to privacy I have seen.

Report this post »    Register/Log In »

ambassador says...
4:59pm Fri 19 Mar 10

What is and why? Explain please?


Report this post »    Register/Log In »

More News stories


Most popular







Local Information

Enter your postcode, town or place name

House prices »   Schools »   Crime »   Hospitals »

Local Businesses