Another sort of camera van
Discussion
Driving in Essex today I noticed a Transit-type van parked on the other side of the road. As I got closer I saw 'Police' on the front and saw a small black camera in front of it (smaller than the mobile gatsos). The side of the van said something like 'CCTV Camera Van - We're Watching You'. Nice.
I can only guess they've solved all the crimes in Essex and are just taking the day off...
Well it's not tax, as that's DVLA, so are they trying to take photos of people on mobile phones? However to get a head-on shot it was on the wrong side of the road. Maybe they're trying to catch, prosecute and fine motorists who have soft toys on the parcel shelf?
Next week: Nose-picking detection week...
I can only guess they've solved all the crimes in Essex and are just taking the day off...
Well it's not tax, as that's DVLA, so are they trying to take photos of people on mobile phones? However to get a head-on shot it was on the wrong side of the road. Maybe they're trying to catch, prosecute and fine motorists who have soft toys on the parcel shelf?
Next week: Nose-picking detection week...
simpo two said:
Driving in Essex today I noticed a Transit-type van parked on the other side of the road. As I got closer I saw 'Police' on the front and saw a small black camera in front of it (smaller than the mobile gatsos). The side of the van said something like 'CCTV Camera Van - We're Watching You'. Nice.
I can only guess they've solved all the crimes in Essex and are just taking the day off...
Well it's not tax, as that's DVLA, so are they trying to take photos of people on mobile phones? However to get a head-on shot it was on the wrong side of the road. Maybe they're trying to catch, prosecute and fine motorists who have soft toys on the parcel shelf?
Next week: Nose-picking detection week...
Don't be negative...there are many positive ways for such a vehicle and it's uses....
We all bleat about crime fighting...such tools are invaluable in the every increasing...prove it, prove it, prove it world we live in..
Street
Sorry, it's just that over the last few years I feel they're out to get me. In fact in a 12 mile journey there were 3-4 police cars loitering with intent.
The camera/thing can only have been checking car regs/speed/noise I'm sure.
It was certainly overt: if I see it again I might stop and find out what's going on. I associate CCTV with shopping centres, not straight out-of-town roads.
Thanks for the replies.
The camera/thing can only have been checking car regs/speed/noise I'm sure.
It was certainly overt: if I see it again I might stop and find out what's going on. I associate CCTV with shopping centres, not straight out-of-town roads.
Thanks for the replies.
Dibble said:
It may have been a mobile CCTV camera van, used in areas where there aren't fixed CCTV systems.
They use them in most Police forces now.
Deployed at a school near me the other day.
Two cameras on extending masts.
I was parked and watched the masts extend to rooftop height.
One surveyed the school playing field.....while the other......
was looking straight into a house bedroom.....
Nope, looking at the lady of the house getting changed 
At this rate, there'll be cameras in our toilets to measure our turds and send sewage bills by length/weight...
Let's face it, as technology progresses, HM Govt will find more and more things to do with it. When tthere's no war to be fought, it turns on it own people. If you don't believe me, remember that speeding was no big deal until gatsos were invented!
At this rate, there'll be cameras in our toilets to measure our turds and send sewage bills by length/weight...
Let's face it, as technology progresses, HM Govt will find more and more things to do with it. When tthere's no war to be fought, it turns on it own people. If you don't believe me, remember that speeding was no big deal until gatsos were invented!
Streetcop said:
Cultivation of cannabis on the premises
No chance...not there.
They're there to appease local shopkeepers and residents....a few rowdy schoolkids have been making a nuisance of themselves.
Not a rough area.
edited 'cos I had a spelling attack......
>> Edited by mybrainhurts on Tuesday 19th October 21:38
mybrainhurts said:
They're there to appease local shopkeepers and residents....a few rowdy schoolkids have been making a nuicance of themselves.
Now if the teachers/local plod had been allowed to whack them whilst growing up, none of this would be necessary. And how much does a fully manned camera on a pole cost the taxpayer? Actually, I'd rather not know...
GregE240 said:
No probs....glad you're seeing police cars about....makes a change from the normal response of...'where are the police nowadays?'
regards and stay safe..
Street:cop :
Yeah.....sat freezing your arses off in vans, eating doughnuts.
Nah...heating on in the van...and warm donuts..mmm
I was actually referring to this:
simpo two said:
In fact in a 12 mile journey there were 3-4 police cars loitering with intent.
Street
simpo two said:
They're there to appease local shopkeepers and residents....a few rowdy schoolkids have been making a nuicance of themselves.
Now if the teachers/local plod had been allowed to whack them whilst growing up, none of this would be necessary. And how much does a fully manned camera on a pole cost the taxpayer? Actually, I'd rather not know...
"Spare the rod and spoil the child" Bamboo canes, fiver for about 200 at the local garden centre.
Hope the "do-gooders" are happy with the screwed up "do as you like they won't hurt you" culture they have created. Don't try it near me, you'll get a slap.
The U.K. is the world leader in video surveillance. Britain is now monitored by four million CCTV cameras, making us the most watched nation in the world. There is one CCTV camera for every 14 people in the UK. If you live in London you are likely to be on cameras 300 times a day.
But that's not all. Since 1994 the Home Office has spent 78% of its crime prevention budget on CCTV, before assessing its effectiveness in deterring or detecting crime. It is now used for routine surveillance of public spaces, round the clock. Other countries use CCTV in more targetted, limited ways: for example, in Munich, Germany cameras are used seasonally during the Oktoberfest in high-crime areas. As well as becoming more ubiquitous, the technology is becoming more sophisticated. Cameras are combined with databases using 'facial recognition technology' to scan and automatically identify people's faces in crowds. 'Smart CCTV' is used in tube stations to identify patterns of behavior that suggest a crime or suicide attempt is about to occur.
Glowing reports of the effectiveness of CCTV are announced regularly. Strathclyde police in Scotland recently claimed a 75 per cent drop in crime following the installation of a £130,000 closed circuit TV system in Airdrie. Not only are people delighted because they are no longer afraid to go out shopping, say local police, but even criminals welcome the chance to prove their innocence by calling on evidence from the cameras. In King's Lynn, burglary and vandalism in the industrial estate has dropped to a tiny fraction of its original level. Crime in car parks has dropped by ninety per cent. People say they feel safer. Indeed they should. Assaults and other violent crimes appear also to have been decimated in the center of town.
The government believes this is because CCTV deters 'opportunistic' crime, where people take advantage of a situation on the spur of the moment. Phillip Edwards from the Home Office Crime Prevention Unit says the government is using CCTV as part of a long term plan to reduce overall crime. "Today's opportunist is tomorrow's professional criminal. If we decrease the number of opportunities for easy crime, we can reduce the number of people becoming professional criminals".
The logic, and the statistics, are superficially impressive, but some analysts are not convinced. In a report to the Scottish Office on the impact of CCTV, Jason Ditton, Director of the Scottish Centre for Criminology, argued that many claims of crime reduction are little more than fantasy. "All (evaluations and statistics) we have seen so far are wholly unreliable", The British Journal of Criminology went further by describing the statistics as "....post hoc shoestring efforts by the untrained and self interested practitioner ".
The crime reduction claims being made by CCTV proponents are not convincing. Three recent criminological reports (Home Office, Scottish Office and Southbank University) have discredited the conventional wisdom about the cameras effectiveness. In a report to the Scottish Office on the impact of CCTV, Jason Ditton, Director of the Scottish Centre for Criminology, argued that the claims of crime reduction are little more than fantasy. "All (evaluations and statistics) we have seen so far are wholly unreliable", The British Journal of Criminology described the statistics as "....post hoc shoestring efforts by the untrained and self interested practitioner." In short, the crime statistics are without credibility.
The crime statistics rarely, if ever, reflect the hypothesis that CCTV merely displaces criminal activity to areas outside the range of the cameras. One of the features of current surveillance practice is that the cameras are often installed in high-rent commercial areas. Crime may be merely pushed from high value commercial areas into low rent residential areas. Councils often find that it is impossible to resist demands for such systems. There is an additional element of displacement that should be of particularly concern to all communities. Since the growth of CCTV as the primary means of crime prevention, more traditional, community based measures have been discarded.
A Scottish Centre for Criminology report on CCTV in Airdre was unable to rule out displacement as a factor. 5 while various studies in other countries indicate that burglars and other criminals will travel long distances to commit crimes. 6 Discussing the justification for establishing a surveillance system of 16 cameras in Manchester, Gordon Conquest, chairman of the city centre sub committee of Manchester Council, candidly admitted "No crackdown on crime does more than displace it, and that's the best we can do at the moment."
But that's not all. Since 1994 the Home Office has spent 78% of its crime prevention budget on CCTV, before assessing its effectiveness in deterring or detecting crime. It is now used for routine surveillance of public spaces, round the clock. Other countries use CCTV in more targetted, limited ways: for example, in Munich, Germany cameras are used seasonally during the Oktoberfest in high-crime areas. As well as becoming more ubiquitous, the technology is becoming more sophisticated. Cameras are combined with databases using 'facial recognition technology' to scan and automatically identify people's faces in crowds. 'Smart CCTV' is used in tube stations to identify patterns of behavior that suggest a crime or suicide attempt is about to occur.
Glowing reports of the effectiveness of CCTV are announced regularly. Strathclyde police in Scotland recently claimed a 75 per cent drop in crime following the installation of a £130,000 closed circuit TV system in Airdrie. Not only are people delighted because they are no longer afraid to go out shopping, say local police, but even criminals welcome the chance to prove their innocence by calling on evidence from the cameras. In King's Lynn, burglary and vandalism in the industrial estate has dropped to a tiny fraction of its original level. Crime in car parks has dropped by ninety per cent. People say they feel safer. Indeed they should. Assaults and other violent crimes appear also to have been decimated in the center of town.
The government believes this is because CCTV deters 'opportunistic' crime, where people take advantage of a situation on the spur of the moment. Phillip Edwards from the Home Office Crime Prevention Unit says the government is using CCTV as part of a long term plan to reduce overall crime. "Today's opportunist is tomorrow's professional criminal. If we decrease the number of opportunities for easy crime, we can reduce the number of people becoming professional criminals".
The logic, and the statistics, are superficially impressive, but some analysts are not convinced. In a report to the Scottish Office on the impact of CCTV, Jason Ditton, Director of the Scottish Centre for Criminology, argued that many claims of crime reduction are little more than fantasy. "All (evaluations and statistics) we have seen so far are wholly unreliable", The British Journal of Criminology went further by describing the statistics as "....post hoc shoestring efforts by the untrained and self interested practitioner ".
The crime reduction claims being made by CCTV proponents are not convincing. Three recent criminological reports (Home Office, Scottish Office and Southbank University) have discredited the conventional wisdom about the cameras effectiveness. In a report to the Scottish Office on the impact of CCTV, Jason Ditton, Director of the Scottish Centre for Criminology, argued that the claims of crime reduction are little more than fantasy. "All (evaluations and statistics) we have seen so far are wholly unreliable", The British Journal of Criminology described the statistics as "....post hoc shoestring efforts by the untrained and self interested practitioner." In short, the crime statistics are without credibility.
The crime statistics rarely, if ever, reflect the hypothesis that CCTV merely displaces criminal activity to areas outside the range of the cameras. One of the features of current surveillance practice is that the cameras are often installed in high-rent commercial areas. Crime may be merely pushed from high value commercial areas into low rent residential areas. Councils often find that it is impossible to resist demands for such systems. There is an additional element of displacement that should be of particularly concern to all communities. Since the growth of CCTV as the primary means of crime prevention, more traditional, community based measures have been discarded.
A Scottish Centre for Criminology report on CCTV in Airdre was unable to rule out displacement as a factor. 5 while various studies in other countries indicate that burglars and other criminals will travel long distances to commit crimes. 6 Discussing the justification for establishing a surveillance system of 16 cameras in Manchester, Gordon Conquest, chairman of the city centre sub committee of Manchester Council, candidly admitted "No crackdown on crime does more than displace it, and that's the best we can do at the moment."
Streetcop said:
We all bleat about crime fighting...such tools are invaluable in the every increasing...prove it, prove it, prove it world we live in.. Street
Surely it's always been the case that guilt has to be proved before convicting someone? I thought that was at the very heart of our legal system?
At least it was until NIPs reared their ugly heads.
CCTV is great 
A lad I know got beaten up outside a nightclub about a year or so ago, when the Police finally got to him (after it was all over and the thug had gone) they said something like 'After we'd watched it on CCTV we thought we'd be coming to pick up a dead man' - the Police station is less than 200yds from the Nightclub .
A lad I know got beaten up outside a nightclub about a year or so ago, when the Police finally got to him (after it was all over and the thug had gone) they said something like 'After we'd watched it on CCTV we thought we'd be coming to pick up a dead man' - the Police station is less than 200yds from the Nightclub . Gassing Station | Speed, Plod & the Law | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff