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Surveillance of Public Space: CCTV, Street Lighting and Crime Prevention

NCJ Number
181923
Editor(s)
Kate Painter, Nick Tilley
Date Published
1999
Length
272 pages
Annotation
These 10 papers examine the role and effectiveness of closed-circuit television (CCTV) and lighting upgrades in crime prevention in Great Britain and suggest the conditions needed for preventive effects to be achieved.
Abstract
Individual chapters distinguish between different forms of guardianship, the assumptions behind them, and the conditions needed for their operation and examine lighting enhancement as a means of crime prevention and present qualitative and quantitative data on the use and cost-effectiveness of lighting. Chapters on the installation of CCTV review literature on the effectiveness of CCTV in reducing crime, disorder, and fear of crime; public attitudes toward the use of CCTV in public places; and the civil liberties implications raised by its use; and examine in detail how operators have used CCTV in three sites. These chapters also present research on the effectiveness of CCTV in a retail setting as a case study for using realistic evaluation and identify nine propositions related to CCTV context-mechanism-outcome configurations. Further chapters evaluate the effectiveness of CCTV in town and city centers in Scotland and England and examine the effects of CCTV as a primary crime prevention approach directed against employee theft and shoplifting in the fashion retailing sector. Figures, tables, notes, and chapter reference lists