CCTV Policy in the UK: Reconsidering the Evidence Base

This article attempts to address such concerns by revisiting the rationale behind the policy and provision of CCTV surveillance cameras, and by reconsidering the evidence base and the logic behind the cameras. In doing so, it suggests that the focus on crime statistics is in many ways a ‘red herring’ that does not fully explain the impetus behind the revolution or the true beneficiaries of CCTV. As costs become a more important issue with the age of systems, the reassessment of the evidence base is as much about a redistribution of the costs of delivering CCTV as about its effectiveness. This in turn raises further questions about the evidence base on which CCTV policy and practice is founded.