Research was able to emphasise the importance of oversight, monitoring and the effective integration into other community safety strategies and policing systems. It warned against treating CCTV as a ‘magic bullet’ and stressed that it was a tool rather than a cure-all. The complex and varied roles and purposes of CCTV systems: intelligence development, incident management, order maintenance were acknowledged in addition to the desire for situational crime reduction, via prevention or deterrence.
Our report, Evaluating CCTV: Lessons from a Surveillance Culture, helped underpin the European CCTV Charter and was incorporated into the supporting EFUS documentation when the charter was formally launched in Rotterdam. Many members of the EFUS partnership have adopted the EU charter.