CCTV fails to cut crime and the technology needs to be curbed in Scotland, where the number of cameras has almost doubled in the past six years, a leading academic has said.

Mike Press, who has spent the past decade studying how design can contribute to crime reduction, told The Times that the expensive policy is politically motivated and ineffectual. He also warned that it can have the opposite effect of that intended, by giving citizens a false sense of security and encouraging them to be careless with property and personal safety.

“We should, as a society, question why we have got it,” said the professor of design policy at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design in Dundee. “Our civil liberties have been crushed and trampled upon and compressed and this is part of that. We have yet to see it have any positive impact. I think we should have a moratorium on it.”

In order for CCTV to have any effect, Professor Press said, it must be used in a targeted way. For example, a scheme in Manchester records every licence plate at the entrance of a shopping complex and alerts police when one is found to belong to an untaxed or stolen car.

This is an effective example of monitoring, he said. Most schemes that simply record city centres continually — often not being watched — do not produce results.

Professor Press said: “All the evidence suggests that CCTV [alone] makes no positive impact on crime reduction and prevention at all. The weight of evidence would suggest the investment is more or less a waste of money unless you have lots of other things in place.

“I think it makes ordinary people feel more secure and I think that’s a sign of the times and of the general paranoia. We think these cameras help but actually the evidence suggests they don't help at all.”

His comments come after figures, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, revealed that there are now 2,235 public CCTV cameras and mobile camera vans in Scotland, compared with 1,269 in 2003. It means that the country, with a population of 5.1 million, now has ten times the number of units in Johannesburg — which has 214 and a population of just under 4 million.

The figures released yesterday also show that Shetland, one of Scotland’s smallest local authority areas, has 30 more cameras than the 71 on the streets of San Francisco. Falkirk Council has four more cameras than Sydney, which has 82.

Professor Press believes that much of the increase is driven by the marketing efforts of security companies who promote the crime-reducing benefits of their products. He described it as a “lazy approach to crime prevention” and authorities should instead be focusing on how to alter the environment to reduce offending.

The most comprehensive report on CCTV, commissioned by the Home Office in the past few years, was cautious about the effects of the technology. “It was saying it was very limited unless there are very specific circumstances,” Professor Press said.

An average camera costs £25,000 to build, while a purpose-built portable unit is £80,000. Scottish councils and police are said to have spent more than £4 million on CCTV in the past three years. Last year, the Scottish government commissioned a count of all cameras across the country.

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