London's Cameras Don't Reduce Crime

Massive investment in CCTV cameras to prevent crime in the UK has failed to have a significant impact, despite billions of pounds spent on the new technology, a senior police officer piloting a new database has warned. Only 3% of street robberies in London were solved using CCTV images, despite the fact that Britain has more security cameras than any other country in Europe.

It's very telling that only 3% of the actual robberies are solved with the help of the system when it was hoped that the system would help prevent crimes from being committed in the first place. Even more telling would be numbers indicating whether crime has increased or decreased since the program was launched.