1000 Über­wa­chungs­ka­me­ras braucht es im Durch­schnitt, um eine Straf­tat pro Jahr zu klä­ren. Uns Über­wa­chungs­geg­nern sagt das natür­lich eines: Weg mit dem Dreck. Die über­wa­chungs­wü­ti­gen Obrig­kei­ten in UK und auch Kon­ti­nen­tal­eu­ropa ver­ste­hen das natür­lich voll­kom­men anders: Mehr Kameras!

Only one crime was sol­ved by each 1,000 CCTV came­ras in Lon­don last year, a report into the city’s sur­veil­lance net­work has claimed.

The inter­nal police report found the million-plus came­ras in Lon­don rarely help catch criminals.

In one month CCTV hel­ped cap­ture just eight out of 269 sus­pec­ted robbers.

David Davis MP, the for­mer shadow home secretary, said: „It should pro­voke a long over­due rethink on where the crime preven­tion bud­get is being spent.”

He added: „CCTV leads to mas­sive expense and mini­mum effectiveness.

„It crea­tes a huge intru­sion on pri­vacy, yet pro­vi­des little or no impro­ve­ment in security.

„The Metro­po­li­tan Police has been extra­or­di­na­rily slow to act to deal with the inef­fec­tiv­en­ess of CCTV.”

Nati­onwide, the govern­ment has spent £500m on CCTV cameras.

But Det Sup Michael Michael McNally, who com­mis­sio­ned the report, con­ce­ded more nee­ded to be done to make the most of the investment.

He said: „CCTV, we recognise, is a really import­ant part of inves­ti­ga­tion and preven­tion of crime, so how we retrieve that from the indi­vi­dual CCTV pods is really quite important.

„There are some con­cerns, and that’s why we have a num­ber of pro­jects on-going at the moment.”

Among those pro­jects is a pilot scheme by the Met to improve the way CCTV images are used.

A spo­kes­man for the Met said: „We esti­mate more than 70% of mur­der inves­ti­ga­ti­ons have been sol­ved with the help of CCTV retrie­vals and most serious crime inves­ti­ga­ti­ons have a CCTV inves­ti­ga­tion strategy.”

Offi­cers from 11 boroughs have for­med a new unit which collects and labels foo­tage cen­trally before dis­tri­bu­ting them across the force and media.

It has led to more than 1,000 iden­ti­fi­ca­ti­ons out of 5,260 images pro­ces­sed so far.

A Home Office spo­kes­wo­man said CCTVs „help com­mu­nities feel safer”.