[extropy-chat] UK police surveillance cameras catch criminals

[BillK]

<http://networks.silicon.com/mobile/0,39024665,39128974,00.htm>

English and Welsh police forces are developing a national network of
thousands of cameras that will scan number plates and check them
against police databases, a move they say will keep criminals off the
road.

The cameras use automatic number plate recognition technology (ANPR)
to check a vehicle's identity against the Police National Computer,
records at the DVLA and local intelligence systems.

Cars flagged by the system can then be stopped by police and, in a
trial of the technology by 23 forces last year, police stopped 180,543
vehicles and made 13,499 arrests, bagging 1,152 stolen vehicles and 13
firearms.

<snip>

Chief Constable of Hertfordshire Frank Whiteley said: "The launch of
the ANPR strategy for the police service is a key step in grasping the
opportunities ANPR provides for denying criminals use of the roads."

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This sounds as though they have at last started using surveillance
cameras pro-actively to stop crime. The police also respond to city
centre crimes that are spotted on camera, like fights and personal
attacks. - There are a lot of them when the bars close on Saturday
night.  :)

Criminals often steal cars to use in crime, so stopping cars that have
been reported stolen should catch a lot. One problem in UK is the
large number of unregistered cars (to avoid taxes and insurance, etc.)
so they are working harder to get rid of them. Unregistered parked
cars that traffic wardens notice are now towed away. I suspect that
initially a lot of the police stops on this new system will be
unregistered cars not known on their database. So they will just
impound the car and charge the driver with minor offences. But even
this is a big improvement - as anyone who has been crashed into by an
unregistered car and had to pay for all the repairs themselves will
agree.

BillK