Tens of thousands of CCTV cameras, yet 80% of crime unsolved
By Justin Davenport, Evening Standard 19.09.07

London has 10,000 crime-fighting CCTV cameras which cost £200 million, figures show today.

But an analysis of the publicly funded spy network, which is owned and controlled by local authorities and Transport for London, has cast doubt on its ability to help solve crime.

A comparison of the number of cameras in each London borough with the proportion of crimes solved there found that police are no more likely to catch offenders in areas with hundreds of cameras than in those with hardly any.

In fact, four out of five of the boroughs with the most cameras have a record of solving crime that is below average.

The figures were obtained by the Liberal Democrats on the London Assembly using the Freedom of Information Act.

Dee Doocey, the Lib-Dems' policing spokeswoman, said: "These figures suggest there is no link between a high number of CCTV cameras and a better crime clear-up rate.

"We have estimated that CCTV cameras have cost the taxpayer in the region of £200million in the last 10 years but it's not entirely clear if some of that money would not have been better spent on police officers.

"Although CCTV has its place, it is not the only solution in preventing or detecting crime.

"Too often calls for CCTV cameras come as a knee-jerk reaction. It is time we engaged in an open debate about the role of cameras in London today."

The figures show:

• There are now 10,524 CCTV cameras in 32 London boroughs funded with Home Office grants totalling about £200million.

• Hackney has the most cameras - 1,484 - and has a better-than-average clearup rate of 22.2 per cent.

• Wandsworth has 993 cameras, Tower Hamlets, 824, Greenwich, 747 and Lewisham 730, but police in all four boroughs fail to reach the average 21 per cent crime clear-up rate for London.

• By contrast, boroughs such as Kensington and Chelsea, Sutton and Waltham Forest have fewer than 100 cameras each yet they still have clear-up rates of around 20 per cent.

• Police in Sutton have one of the highest clear-ups with 25 per cent.

• Brent police have the highest clear-up rate, with 25.9 per cent of crimes solved in 2006-07, even though the borough has only 164 cameras.

The figures appear to confirm earlier studies which have thrown doubt on the effectiveness of CCTV cameras.

A report by the criminal justice charity Nacro in 2002 concluded that the money spent on cameras would be better used on street lighting, which has been shown to cut crime by up to 20 per cent.

Scotland Yard is trying to improve its track record on the use of CCTV and has set up a special unit which collects and circulates CCTV images of criminals.

A pilot project is running in Southwark and Lambeth and is expected to be rolled out across the capital.

The figures only include state-funded cameras.

The true number, once privately run units and CCTV at rail and London Underground stations are taken into account, will be significantly higher.

OREM, Utah (AP) -- A 70-year-old woman arrested in a dispute over her brown lawn pleaded not guilty Tuesday, then stood by as a Los Angeles lawyer waved handcuffs for the cameras outside court.

Betty Perry is charged with resisting arrest and failing to maintain her landscaping, both misdemeanors.

She was arrested July 6 after failing to give her name to a police officer who visited her home.

During a struggle, Perry fell and injured her nose. She spent more than an hour in a holding cell before police released her.

"I ask the citizens of Orem: How many of you would like to have your great-grandmother taken from her home with bruises and blood and placed in handcuffs for failing to water her lawn?" attorney Gloria Allred said.

"Let's bring sanity back to law enforcement," she said.

The mayor and City Council apologized, and the police department said the situation could have been handled differently. But the city attorney still is pressing charges, and Perry is due back in court next month.

A state investigation found that Officer James Flygare acted properly in arresting Perry after trying to get her to cooperate.

Perry's water had been turned off for about nine months, at her request, although she was living at the house at the time of the arrest. Orem has a shutoff policy for people who are away for extended periods

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Police officer taped ranting at driver fired

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ST. GEORGE, Missouri (AP) -- A police sergeant whose berating of a driver was captured on videotape has been fired.

Aldermen in the town of St. George, a St. Louis suburb, voted 5-0 in a closed meeting Monday to fire Sgt. James Kuehnlein. Notice of the firing was posted Wednesday at City Hall.

Kuehnlein's attorney, Travis L. Noble, said the officer received a letter Thursday detailing the reasons for his firing. Noble said he would review the letter with Kuehnlein before deciding on a course of action.

Brett Darrow, 20, had a video recorder inside his car when Kuehnlein approached him in a commuter lot in the early hours of September 7. Video Watch the tape and police officer's tirade »

In a video that was widely viewed on the Internet, Kuehnlein is heard taunting and threatening Darrow, sometimes shouting and using profanity. Video CNN's Jeanne Moos introduces the videotaping driver »
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"It's what I wanted the whole time," Darrow told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "The conduct was not forgivable."

Police Chief Scott Uhrig said he recommended that Kuehnlein be fired based both on his language in the tape and because he violated department policy when he failed to tape the encounter himself with his police car's camera. E-mail to a friend E-mail to a friend

I can't wait until stewie is a cop, then I can taunt him all I want without worring about being arrested and thrown in federal pound me in the ass prison.

I can't wait until [I am] thrown in federal pound me in the ass prison.

Man gets I-5 speeding ticket, loses a quarter-million dollars

By Seattle Times staff

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WASHINGTON STATE PATROL

Here's the cash, seized from a visiting Canadian who had a hard time explaining how he got it.

Driving 11 miles over the speed limit cost one driver more than a quarter-million dollars this weekend — at least for now.

A State Patrol trooper spotted a Honda Accord speeding southbound on Interstate 5 on Friday, according to State Patrol spokesman Jeff Merrill. It was raining, and the driver was cruising down the freeway at 71 mph. So the trooper pulled the driver over, Merrill said.

The 35-year-old from British Columbia, who had a valid driver's license, struggled to tell the trooper where he was going and how long he had been in Washington, prompting the trooper to search his car, Merrill said.

The trooper found two suitcases in the trunk — one filled with $276,640 in cash. The driver claimed he won the stacks of dollar bills at 23 casinos in Washington, California and Nevada, but he was unable to produce any receipts, according to Merrill.

The money was confiscated as the State Patrol investigates the incident. Merrill said if it is determined the man obtained the money legally it will be returned to him.