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Reinvigorating CCTV with the Met's VIIDO units
As a follow-up to the CCTV feature in the last issue DCI Mick Neville invited the BAPCO Journal to the latest in a series of presentations he has been giving on the success of the Visual Images, Identifications and Detections Office (VIIDO) units under the name Operation Javelin.
Starting in Southwark Police Station DCI Neville gave an interesting and illuminating presentation on the problems with CCTV as it is currently used, and how the VIIDO units are helping to improve this. For example, on London buses there are 14 cameras filming all areas of the bus. But just five percent of bus crimes were solved. This, argues DCI Neville, was a shockingly low percentage, given the good quality CCTV that will have been collected.
He suggests that one of the problems was that officers charged with finding the relevant CCTV footage have no training nor performance indicators relating to finding the footage. But, by creating a unit with dedicated CCTV staff you can create a culture where the desire to find footage is high. By setting up performance tables it also means there is a healthy competition between officers to perform as best they can.
The need to improve the use of CCTV footage is a simple one and was likened by DCI Neville to the use of DNA. Where DNA is seen as an investigative tool, CCTV was originally seen as a preventative one. However, once criminals came to understand that being caught on camera wouldn’t result in any action the cameras lost their usefulness.
Investigative and preventative
By making the cameras investigative as well as preventative – letting criminals know that appearing on CCTV will result in police action – the police can help make them a far more important tool. This was another point DCI Neville made – that police, and not the technology, must set the agenda of how it is used. – adding, ‘it doesn’t matter how good the technology is if there is no-one using it to make arrests.’
The footage gathered from CCTV cameras often comes from a wide array of business that own cameras, with only around seven percent from local councils. This means the VIIDO units have incorporated procedures that adhere to all evidential requirements for handling footage.
Footage is gathered by the dedicated VIIDO personnel and a copy is made to be worked on. The original is kept sealed and is signed over to the police by the person providing it. This gives the police a good audit trail and means they have the original master copy should any issues in court arise suggesting footage has been manipulated in an unfair way. These procedures are followed through despite the fact there currently exists no official CPS protocols for the use of CCTV footage in court and its handling.
For large-scale crimes relating to murders or to terrorist activity the footage is still processed at the video laboratory in Newlands Park, south London. But VIIDO units focus on volume crimes and are expertly placed to process and work on footage gathered that would not warrant being worked on at the lab.
Image Database
Another key element of DCI Neville’s presentation was the need for forces to work together with images as often criminals caught on camera do not live in that location. By creating a cross-borough system images and footage of suspects can be spread quickly and easily and help officers have a far better chance of catching wanted suspects.
The next plan for Operation Javelin is to create a database of all images so police personnel can search quickly and efficiently for any suspect. A online journal called ‘Caught on Camera’ is already produced with a raft of images that officers can look through to try and increase the chances of a successful detection.
After the end of the presentation assembled members traveled to Brixton Police Station to see their VIIDO unit in operation and hear the staff working in the unit discuss the processes for handling footage and the success they have been having.
The day demonstrated that CCTV is starting to become the useful, investigative tool it should be, thanks in a large part to the work being undertaken by Operation Javelin. However, it was eye opening to discover how ad-hoc the situation was before CCTV was made a priority and a dedicated arena. The work of the VIIDO units underlines this is a technology with massive potential, but it has been under-used and under-developed for many years. But it is heading in the right direction and the figures prove this.
In areas where VIIDO units have been operating up to 20% of crimes have resulted in detections of criminals in Tier 1 and 2 crimes, this is the same level or higher of the percentage caught using DNA and fingerprints. This level of success underlines that CCTV is worth investing in and can be a massive advantage for the police and as Operation Javelin is proving, with the right personnel, investment and procedures criminals be fearful of the security camera.
Read the original article here.
