> Dear Hillary,
>
> I felt that your message yesterday about the absence of public debates
> surrounding the use of CCTV was ill-informed. At a local level - and
> (perhaps critically) outside academic circles - CCTV and other monitoring
> activities are frequently on the agenda of council, neighbourhood watch
> and police-community consultative group meetings. And this is quite right
> - people do have a right to be consulted upon crime prevention measures in
> their local towns and cities. However, certainly in Surrey, there are no
> CCTV cameras in residential areas due to infringements of civil liberties
> and the very problems of which you speak. Most people - myself included -
> tend to feel happier with some form of monitoring of activities in public
> places. In many of our areas covered by CCTV, detections have risen
> enormously (attributed to the use of the cameras). In the age of constant
> budgetary cuts, we do not have the resources to have as many 'bobbies on
> the beat' as we would like - this gives us a method of 'virtual policing'
> which is invaluable.
>
> As for the case in Newham, it is a particularly deprived inner-city area
> with high crime levels. Street robbery is very high and a recent fall in
> the number has been attributed to the use of cameras. 92% of Newham
> residents actually want more cameras - when you clearly feel that there
> are already too many - believing that the public safety advantages CCTV
> offers far outweigh civil liberty concerns. Crimes in public places need
> to be taken very seriously by police forces - they can lead to increased
> fear, promote lower usage of public spaces and eventually lead to urban
> stigmatisation and decline. Surely Newham Borough Council have been
> responsible in responding to public concerns (they have performed very
> thorough public consultation excercises).
>
> I would also like to take issue with the comment you made about the new
> capabilities of speed cameras. I - like many of my colleagues - travel
> daily on the M25. We have restricted speed limits at busy times and watch
> how people 'surf' the cameras - speeding down under the gantry until past
> the series of white lines and speeding up in between. This causes huge
> problems for traffic flow. The restrictions slow the traffic down in
> order to, ultimately, speed it up. Tracking speeds in between is not some
> draconian method of catching more motorists, but a method of slowing the
> traffic down for everyone's benefit.
>
> I fail to understand why people are concerned about speed cameras when the
> number of road traffic accidents is always rising. The injuries sustained
> by victims are directly attributable to the speed on impact (and the
> safety features of the car). I am always dismayed when people take issue
> with police attempts to slow traffic down - when it is the police who
> arrive first at the scene and have to witness horrific injuries.
>
> I have yet to make my mind up about face recognition systems, but I
> realise that it is a complex issue and the last thing we need is for CCTV
> to be feared when its successes have been great to date.
>
> Regards,
>
> Kay.
>
> Dr. Kay Graham.
> Corporate Research Manager
> Surrey Police Headquarters.
> Guildford.
>
> **The views expressed in this email are personal and should not be read as
> being shared
> by other members of Surrey Police.**
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