I’d even have bought you a beer, I think you should write to his tonyness and complain.
One word: Panopticon.
Although you make the same basic assumption I did when my bike got stolen from right in front of a CCTV camera, that they actually record the footage to begin with.
And a lot of the criticism of CCTV is that it isn’t managed effectively. The powers that be believe the hype, stick in a camera, don’t bother to monitor it, record it or use it in conjunction with anything else and expect a miracle cure for crime and it’s bullshit.
Again figures are pretty hard to find with my google-fu, but at best I’d expect that we might have spent all this money on a reasonably good way of being able to piece together evidence in terms of solving a crime that’s already happened such as the Bulger case, but as a deterrent, it simply isn’t effective outside of opportunistic crime such as breaking into cars.
If CCTV was in the public interest they’d all be webcams.
Christ I am going deaf. I only clearly hear the first one. The next couple I can only sense vaguely and I am 41! <shit>