Few robberies solved in UK through CCTVs

If only three percent of the robberies are solved as a result of CCTV, it isn't particularly surprising that they had no impact on the number of crimes. It doesn't seem that this satisfies the cost-benefit test. The billions spent on this could have put a lot of police officers on the street. The Guardian has the story here:

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. . . . .

THe problem is apparently even worse than this. Not only are few crimes solved, but the shots from the cameras are apparently not very useful in court.

Use of CCTV images for court evidence has so far been very poor, according to Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville, the officer in charge of the Metropolitan police unit. "CCTV was originally seen as a preventative measure," Neville told the Security Document World Conference in London. "Billions of pounds has been spent on kit, but no thought has gone into how the police are going to use the images and how they will be used in court. It's been an utter fiasco: only 3% of crimes were solved by CCTV. There's no fear of CCTV. Why don't people fear it? [They think] the cameras are not working."