Big Brother may no longer just be watching you while you walk and drive around Joburg’s CBD – he could be shouting orders at you too.
|||Big Brother may no longer just be watching you while you walk and drive around Joburg’s city centre – he could be shouting orders at you too.
Joburg is considering adding speakers to its 237 CCTV cameras in the CBD to warn would-be criminals that they are being watched, and to berate people acting anti-socially, such as littering or urinating in public.
In fact, according to chief superintendent Richard Witte, regional commander of Joburg CCTV, several speakers have already been fitted on some cameras in a pilot project which will be reviewed in the next few months. “We just want to see if this is going to work for us,” he said. “It will still have to be taken to council for approval. At this stage our service provider is just piloting the system and they are testing the microphones.”
Witte said the latest experiment will enhance surveillance technology.
The speakers will allow CCTV control room operators who spot any would-be muggers or bylaw breakers to send out a verbal warning that they are being watched, as a deterrent.
The would-be offenders could be loudly embarrassed by being caught before they could commit further crimes.
The police said this week that since the introduction of the R42 million surveillance system in Joburg four years ago, there had been a marked decline in crime.
“… We have seen a dramatic decline in crimes including serious ones like robberies, compared with four years ago when we didn’t have cameras,” said Witte. “This could be a success indicator as we continually make arrests with the help of cameras and have seen criminals receive increased sentences as a result of being repeatedly caught.”
General Tirhani Maswanganyi, cluster commander of Joburg central, said he had sought to see how effectively the CCTV cameras could be used to fight crime. “We have made a lot of breakthroughs including last month when we were struggling with a spate of business robberies,” he said. “… we arrested five people whom we have now linked to 21 similar robberies in Joburg.”
Dr Johan Burger, security expert at the Institute of Security Studies, said: “You do expect to see dramatic decline in crime, but what is critical is that the system is properly managed for efficiency. The downside is that criminals usually will target places not covered by the cameras.”
Saturday Star