Crime and cameras

Surveillance cameras may be a pervasive site in many cities these days, but according to an article in the Daily Mail, most CCTV footage is useless for identify criminals.

Quoting Scotland Yard's surveillance chief inspector Mark Neville, the Mail says only 3 percent of crimes in Britain are solved using CCTV footage, and they have have had little, if any, impact in reducing crime.

It would be interesting to know if this also applies to the CCTV cameras used on public transport.
As a regular user of public transport while living in the North of England, I was told by drivers that CCTV cameras were installed on most buses, and this meant that trouble-making young "scallies" on public transport could be easily identified and dealt with later by the Police.

But, if CCTV cameras are as ineffectual as this article claims, then all they're likely to achieve is to discourage people from dealing with anti-social activity themselves. Certainly the presence of cameras on buses has made me think twice about clouting the odd little darling busily engaged in abusing and spitting on hapless pedestrians.

However, spitting on innocent citizens barely registers as anti-social behaviour in the rougher parts of Britain. Non-violent youth crime has apparently got so bad in some parts of Manchester for example, that locals have had to resort to semi-vigilante-style neighborhood watch groups to maintain any semblance of law and order.

Mmmm, I wonder, if this DIY citizen policing will ever take off among the besieged citizens of trendy Islington?