Biographical Notes

Peter Jones is Dean of the Exploring the Role of CCTV Surveillance

Business School at the
University of Plymouth,
UK. David Hillier is Head
Systems in Town Centre Management
of Geography at the
University of Glamorgan,
Wales, UK. David Turner
by Peter Jones, David Hillier and David Turner
is Head of Research with
the Hampshire
Constabulary, Winchester, Introduction
UK.

Within the UK the past three decades have witnessed dramatic and continuing
changes in the geography of retail provision. During this period the traditional
supremacy of town and city centres at the top of the retail hierarchy has been
increasingly successfully challenged by the development and diversification of
out-of-town and edge of town shopping facilities. This 'out of town exodus'
(Schiller, 1987[1]) can be traced from the food superstores opened by grocery
retailers from the late 1960's onwards through the development of retail warehouses,
retail parks and regional shopping centres (Guy, 1994[2]) to a more recent 'fourth
wave' (Fernie, 1995[3]) which include warehouse clubs, factory outlet centres and
airport retailing. The cumulative effects of these developments are seen to pose a
major challenge to retail businesses in town and city centres and perhaps more
fundamentally to the centres themselves. The traditional spirit of the UK's town and
country planning policies, first established some fifty years ago, was to positively
support retail activity in town and city centres and to restrict out of town retail
development (Guy, 1994[4]). However, from the early 1980's onwards, such
policies had only a limited effect in stemming the tide of retail decentralisation and
they often seemed to be honoured more in the breach than in the observance.

By the mid 1990's, however, central government began to adopt a much more
restrictive approach to out of town development and the current planning policy
guidelines (Department of the Environment, 1996[5]) stress that permission for
retail development on out of town locations should only be given if suitable town
centre and edge of town centre sites are unavailable and only then if such locations
are accessible by a choice of means of transport. At the same time these policy
guidelines included a clear commitment to promoting town centre management.
Underlying this commitment is the belief that the effective management and
promotion of town and city centres will help to enhance their vitality and viability.
Town centre management can be defined as a 'carefully planned and co-ordinated
programme of policies, actions, and activities undertaken to maintain and enhance
central shopping environments'. (Jones, 1992[6]). The first town centre manage-
ment schemes were established in the late 1980's and by the mid 1990's such
schemes were common throughout much of the UK. A range of initiatives have been
pursued under the town centre management umbrella which include small scale
landscape developments and environmental improvements; the provision of leisure,
recreation and entertainment activities; the co-ordination of local authority and
business sector management policies and operational programmes; promotion and
marketing strategies; and crime prevention and security measures. During the
1990's, closed circuit television (CCTV) surveillance systems have become an
increasingly popular means of tackling the last of these initiatives. At the same time,
the introduction of such schemes seem to pose a range of often complex management
and research issues. This article provides a short outline of CCTV developments in
town and city centres within the UK and seeks to explore some of these issues. The
article draws on information provided by a number of police forces, local authorities

Volume 20 Number 1 0 1997 35

 and security companies, and by the Home Office, Liberty and the British Retail'
Consortium.

Closed Circuit Television Surveillance Systems

In its simplest form a CCTV surveillance system consists of a camera, a television

monitor and recording equipment. The camera is usually located in a high visibility
location to provide coverage of the area involved and the video pictures it generates
of sites and activities are transmitted via a fibre optic cable to a monitoring room.
The transmitted video pictures are monitored by an observer and recorded and still
pictures can be downloaded from the video. More commonly, a system will employ
multiple cameras and split screen monitors, more sophisticated cameras can offer
pan, tilt and zoom functions and infra red spot lighting can be added for night time
vision and surveillance.

Typical general aims in introducing a town centre CCTV system are 'to provide
a safer town centre for the benefit of those who visit, live, work or trade there, and
to allow the full enjoyment of its facilities and environment,' 'to assist in the
revitalising the centre' and 'to enhance the economic position of the centre by
encouraging more businesses into the town where people can shop in the knowledge
that they are in a safe environment.' More specifically, CCTV systems are usually
introduced in the belief that they will achieve one or more of the following objectives
viz to deter criminals and disruptive groups from intimidating the public; to reduce
organised crime especially where gangs of shoplifters, pickpockets and drug dealers
carry out such activities in town centres; to detect antisocial and public order
offences; to help convict offenders through the provision of high resolution images;
to increase the general public's sense of safety; and to provide a greater sense of
commercial security for the retail and business community.

The first town centre CCTV system was introduced in Kings Lynn in 1987 and
similar systems were deployed in a small number of town centres in the mid 1980's
but their popularity grew more rapidly during the early 1990's. By late 1996 CCTV
systems were operational in some 140 town and city centres throughout the UK and
over 100 new schemes were in the planning pipeline. A number of large cities
including Glasgow, Manchester, Hull, Liverpool and Bradford, as well as many
major centres within Greater London have CCTV systems and they have also been
introduced at most levels of the urban hierarchy and in contrasting geographical
locations, for example in Chester, Plymouth, Ilkeston, Bodmin, Harlow, Newport,
Colwyn Bay and Dunfermline. In Newport, Gwent, a twenty-four camera system
was installed in the town centre in 1994. The images are monitored in a secure
location off town centre by 'town centre rangers' who also patrol the centre. There
is twenty four hour coverage with one operator during the daytime and two at night
viewing for one to two hour sessions in between patrolling. The system is jointly
funded by the Welsh Office, the local authority and the town traders. In Plymouth
the CCTV system includes twenty six cameras in the pedestrianised town centre
and the video pictures are monitored on local authority's premises by a private
security firm.

The capital costs of CCTV systems vary with the scale of the venture and the
sophistication of the technical equipment, but typical figures for a large city centre
like Nottingham are £630,000 ranging down to some £20,000 for a relatively small
scheme in Buckingham. Annual operating costs and capital equipment replacement

36 Management Research News

 costs can range from £100,000 upwards. The majority of schemes are jointly funded
by central and/or local government and the local retail and business community. In
the 1996/97 Home Office CCTV 'Challenge Competition', for example, some 240
schemes were successful in bidding for Government funding of almost £16 million
to support total capital costs of £37 million. Just over 100 of the successful bids
were for town/city centres and these included schemes with a capital cost of over
£500,000 in Crawley, Milton Keynes, Woking and Walsall as well as much smaller
ventures costing under £100,000 in St Albans, Penarth and Chesterfield.

Management and Research Perspectives

The introduction of CCTV systems has received strong positive support from many
of the stakeholders in town and city centres including central government, local
authorities, retailers, the police and the majority of the general public. In his forward
to the 1994 Home Office Guide [7] to CCTV the Home Secretary, for example,
stressed that CCTV 'surveillance cameras are becoming a regular feature in an
increasing number of towns and cities in response to public demand' and that they
'can not only help prevent and detect crime' but 'can also deter criminals and
reassure the public'. In a similar vein at the local authority level, Ipswich Borough
Council, in a promotional brochure, argue that 'crime and the fear of crime is one
of the biggest issues we face today and our CCTV cameras play an important role
here - acting as a visible deterrent to law breakers'. Police authorities have also
provided powerful support for the introduction of CCTV although they would
typically stress that such surveillance systems should not be seen as the sole answer
to the problems of crime, disorder and public nuisance in town centres. In their view
CCTV should be viewed as part of an interrelated and wider package of measures
involving all town centre stakeholders working together in partnership. At the same
time, police authorities can see CCTV as not only placing yet another demand on
already overstretched resources, but also one that will be difficult to manage. The
immediacy of the images generated can be perceived as creating a 'we need you
here now' syndrome while the general public may come to expect the police to
'solve' crime and crime related problems with the aid of this new technology.

While the introduction of surveillance cameras are widely seen as an important

weapon in deterring and detecting crime, and in reducing the fear of crime, within
town and city centres, the employment, management and evaluation of CCTV raises
a range of issues and agendas for those involved in, and responsible for, the
management of town centres. There are initial planning and feasibility issues. Some
police forces, for example, privately suggest that in some cases a number of local
authorities have been drawn into introducing CCTV schemes with little research
being carried out locally. Thus they have a perception that pressure and plans for
CCTV are triggered by the introduction of a system in a neighbouring town or city.
A detailed reported crime audit is seen to be important here and this information
can also help to inform debates and discussions about local perceptions of crime
levels and the risk and fear of crime. Without such research some police forces
believe that CCTV becomes little more than an expensive cure looking for an illness.
Once a decision is taken to install a CCTV system within a town or city centre, then
a variety of operational issues need to be addressed. A limited number of examples
can provide some flavour of these issues. In establishing the precise operational
requirements it is vital to have a clear view of the different technical demands on a
CCTV system. If individuals are to be identified, then the system must be capable
of 'zooming in' and taking 'head and shoulders' quality images of a person. Once

Volume 20 Number 10 1997 37

 operational the effectiveness of a CCTV system will depend in part on the quality
and skills of the monitoring staff. Here training programmes focusing, for example,
upon local crime patterns, gathering evidence by camera, the importance of eviden-
tial continuity of video tapes and liaison with the police control rooms have crucial
roles to play. In many cases, tapes are used over and over again for filming. Such a
practice provides poor quality images and where these images are to be used as
evidence in court then this is a major problem. This has led the police forces to turn
their attention to ways of enhancing poor quality video film footage. A joint project
involving Greater Manchester Police and the Forensic Science Service has been
established on a pilot basis to provide image enhancement and interpretation
services to police forces. The interpretation and decoding of behaviour and actions
captured on film is a major challenge not always apparent to those looking to CCTV
to provide an objective quick technological fix to perceived crime. More generally,
it is important to note that while the Local Government Information Unit have
produced a model code of practice relating to CCTV, there are no statutory
enforceable guidelines or legislative governing its uses in town and city centres.

Despite the rapid growth in the popularity of CCTV, surveillance systems in

town and city centres, the evaluation of their impact and effectiveness have generally
been limited to small scale local studies and Fyfe and Bannister (1996[8]) have
called such evaluations into question, suggesting that such studies often exhibit a
number of methodological and theoretical problems. Firstly, the 'before' and 'after'
time spans are often too short and not always 'matched' for time of year. Secondly,
that the data the evaluations employ relates to crime reported to, and recorded by,
the police which may not accurately reflect the actual incidence of, or changes in,
crime. Thirdly, the possibility that crime has been displaced to areas that are not
monitored by CCTV is said to be rarely studied or discussed, and few attempts are
made to identify control areas in an attempt to assess comparable changes in the
level of reported crime in areas of the town/city without CCTV. Finally, on a more
theoretical level, the authors argue that CCTV surveillance is part of the discourse
of new behaviourism and as such is more concerned with the prevention of crime
than its cause, and more concerned with changing behavioural consequences than
with changing social conditions. As such, they argue CCTV systems work at the
level of deterrence and not at the level of causation.

Nevertheless, many policy and continuing resource allocation decisions have

been, and continue to be made, on the basis of the existing small scale evaluation
studies and reports. Individual police authorities and local councils have undertaken
a number of studies and evaluations of the impact of CCTV systems. In mid 1996
for example, Strathclyde Police reported a 17% fall in reported street crime in those
parts of Glasgow city centre monitored by 'The Citywatch' street camera system.
The Strathclyde Police also argued that thefts of property and break-ins had been
considerably reduced, indicating that the non-stop CCTV surveillance of the city
centre was discouraging the professional thief. In September 1996, Derbyshire
Constabulary reported significant reductions in crime and public disorder in Ilkeston
town centre following the introduction of CCTV. Earlier that year official data
showing 16-19% reductions in recorded crime figures for a range of offences
including burglary, motor vehicle theft, assault damage and theft from shops over
a comparable six months were cited to support the Constabulary's view that CCTV
is a proven and effective weapon in the fight against town centre crime.

Darlington Borough Council has undertaken its own evaluation of the CCTV

38 Management Research News

 system which was introduced in the town in 1994. The evaluation sought to explore
the impact of CCTV on town centre crime by conducting interviews with members
of the public, car park users, police officers and offenders, by a questionnaire
circulated to town centre businesses, and by a simple comparison of recorded crime
levels before and after the introduction of CCTV. Interviews with a random sample
of 300 members of the general public, for example, revealed that CCTV does much
to remove the fear factor and that 90% of those interviewed claimed to be more
inclined to visit the town centre due to the presence of this surveillance technology.
In a similar way the report stressed that CCTV had had a major impact in reducing
the level of crime and the fear of crime in town centre car parks. The police claimed
a marked decrease in theft and public order offences and a dramatic reduction in
criminal damage within the town centre and stressed the critical role of CCTV in
providing evidence with which to secure convictions. Although only 25% of the
sixty one town centre businesses which completed the questionnaire reported that
they had noted a decrease in crime against their business, some 41% suggested that
the introduction of CCTV would be a determining factor in the decision making
process for any future expansion plans.

The Home Office Police Research Group report "CCTV in Town Centres:
Three Case Studies" (Brown, 1995[9]) is probably the most authoritative evaluation
study. The study, based on Newcastle upon Tyne, Birmingham and Kings Lynn,
clearly suggested that CCTV was used most often to deal with conspicuous anti
social and criminal behaviour, most notably various small scale public order
problems ranging from unruly nuisance behaviour to fighting and assaults. In
assessing the impact of CCTV, the study found that when cameras are first installed
within an area, they can have an immediate deterrent effect on a wide range of
crimes. This it was argued may help to explain the reductions in crime often
indicated by some of the short term evaluation studies. However, the report sug-
gested that the effect of CCTV on crime may start to fade in the longer term. In all
areas included in the study there is evidence to suggest that CCTV had reduced
property crime, particularly burglary, but the effect of surveillance cameras on crime
against the person was less clear. More general informal enquiries carried out by
the British Retail Consortium suggest that while some town centres are claiming up
to 36% reductions in crime following the introduction of CCTV, it is not clear
whether such reductions are due to CCTV or to a wider range of management
initiatives introduced at about the same time, e.g. radio links, shop watch schemes,
dedicated town centre policing, all of which may have had a positive impact on
previously neglected town centres, so increasing footfall and acting as a deterrent.
In addition, the, Consortium suggest that it is also important to try to evaluate the
impact of the measures taken over recent years by the large retailers within town
and city centres to improve their own security in response to increasing levels of
theft and violence in the retail trade.

A major potential problem in any debate about the impact of CCTV systems is
that of displacement. The Home Office (Brown, 1995[10]) argued that it was very
difficult to identify displacement accurately but suggests that there is evidence to
suggest some displacement had taken place particularly personal crime such as
robbery and thefts from the person. The study also specifically revealed that, in
Birmingham, as crime had been displaced away from the city centre area covered
by CCTV so it had manifested itself in different ways, especially theft from parked
vehicles. The local authority study in Darlington also revealed some evidence of
displacement crime to surrounding areas but the reduction in reported crime in the

Volume 20 Number 10 1997 39

 town centre was seen to far exceed any increases elsewhere. Further the report
concluded that this CCTV system had proved so successful that the Darlington
Police Force had been able to allocate resources to surrounding areas to combat any
crime displaced from the town centre. In a similarly positive vein, the Strathclyde
Police have stressed that there is nothing to suggest that crime was being displaced
from streets covered by Glasgow's 'Citywatch' CCTV system to other parts of the
city centre.

Any comprehensive evaluation of CCTV systems should not only attempt to

assess displacement but also seek to examine financial costs as well as perceived
benefits. Here there is some evidence of emerging problems. The British Retail
Consortium, for example, suggest that the retail sector is becoming increasingly
reluctant to be seen as the principal funder of new CCTV schemes in town and city
centres, or to take responsibility for the major share of the funding of existing
schemes. Indeed there have been a number of worrying financial signs in areas where
CCTV is perceived by local stakeholders to be a success. In Glasgow, for example,
the Citywatch Association which operates the CCTV system in the city centre had
a funding shortfall of £65,000 for 1996/97 and faces further funding problems in
1997/98 because of the expiry of capital funding from the Glasgow Development
Agency and the resulting cost cutting exercises seem likely to affect the quality and
integrity of the service.

What of the general public? Conventional wisdom suggests that the deployment
of CCTV in public places such as town and city centres will raise a range of issues
relating to civil liberties and personal privacy. However, there is little or no evidence
of such public concern and at a time when the security industry estimates that each
member of the population is viewed on average by eight different surveillance
cameras each day, the public acceptance of, and support for, CCTV systems seems
to be widespread. In Ipswich, for example, a survey of public opinion conducted
before the installation of the CCTV system revealed that 97% of those surveyed
supported its introduction in the town centre. Here the local authority believe that
this public support remains constant and they note that they received no letters of
complaint during the first two years of the system's operation. However, this is not
to say that civil liberty issues do not merit continuing debate and research. Such
issues include the monitoring and public accountability of CCTV systems, the need
for regulatory and legislative operational frameworks and the fear that the passive
acceptance of surveillance technology as a method of crime control could facilitate
its use as a tool for more general moral and social control. Liberty, the civil and
political rights pressure group for example, suggest that all pervasive surveillance
is now foreseeable and that it will give future authorities tremendous opportunities
to exert social control and they question whether British society should continue to
move in this direction without public debate and without legislation.

Conclusion

During the 1990's CCTV surveillance systems have become increasingly common-
place in town and city centres throughout the UK. The deployment of CCTV seems
to have strong, if at times qualified, support from all the stakeholders - central and
local government, the police authorities, the retail business community and the
general public - with an interest in town and city centres. Nevertheless, the growing
installation and use of CCTV systems does raise a wide range of empirical,
operational and conceptual issues relating to crime audits, operational management

40 Management Research News

 and quality control, the systematic evaluation of CCTV, crime displacement and
civil liberties. Continuing research into these issues can help to inform policy
debates about the future management of town and city centres.

Volume 20 Number 10 1997 41

 References

1. Schiller, R. 'Out of Town Exodus' from E. McFadyen (Ed.), The Changing Face
of British Retailing, London, Newman Books, 1987.

2. Guy, C, The Retail Development Process, London, Routledge, 1994.

3. Fernie, J., 'The Coming of the Fourth Wave: New Forms of Retail Out of Town
Development,' International Journal of Retail and Distribution Management, Vol.
23, No. l,pp.4-l 1,1995.

4. Guy, C., op.cit.

5. Department of the Environment, 'Town Centres and Retail Development,'

Planning Policy Guidance, PPG, London: HMSO, 1996.

6. Jones, P., 'Town Centre Management Schemes in the UK,' International Journal
of Retail and Distribution Management, Vol. 18, No. 3, p. 15, 1990.

7. Home Office, Closed Circuit Television, London: Home Office, 1994.

8. Fyfe, N.R. and Bannister, J., 'City Watching: Closed Circuit Television in Public
Spaces,' Area, Vol. 28, No. 1, pp.37-46, 1996.

9. Brown, B., 'CCTV in Town Centres: Three Case Studies', Police Research Group
Crime Detection and Prevention Schemes, Paper No. 68, London: Home Office,
1995.

10. Ibid.

42 Management Research News