CCTV in Westport Mayo

mayo | rights, freedoms and repression | press release Wednesday April 19, 2006 23:44 by Keith Martin- Councillor

CCTV is being mooted for Westport

Big Brother might be coming to Westport. Not the TV show but the real thing, 24 hour live recording of Westport, its streets and its citizens. This latest proposed CCTV scheme follows on the very expensive and inconclusive efforts of Castlebar which introduced a similar scheme in 2004. Just how many people have been convicted using the scheme is debatable.

At the time in was argued that brighter street lighting would be more effective especially coupled with an effective on street Garda presence. In the end the CCTV was installed and the latest reports were that it was being foiled by the criminal culprits wearing hoodies and baseball caps and by poor street lighting making it impossible to identify the few culprits that forgot their hoodies and baseball caps. There is no camera in the world that can see through a hoodie or a baseball cap and even the best of CCTV is often not of a high enough quality to ensure a conviction.

In fact there is little evidence to suggest that CCTV is either a deterrent or a useful tool in fighting crime. In any event it is better suited to city centres than Bridge Street, Westport. According to the British Government, and it should be noted that the UK has more CCTV surveillance than any other country in the world, CCTV cameras, at best, reduce crime by 4%. Studies have shown that the deterrence factor of a newly installed CCTV system falls off after a number of weeks.

A 4% reduction is crime is not really worth the hundreds of thousands of euro it will take to install a CCTV system in Westport. It will then cost thousands more to run and maintain. Westport would be better served by more Gardai on the beat on the street than it would be by Big Brother. Who wants their every move recorded and stored on computer in exchange for a 4% drop in crime?