HOME Affairs Minister Juan Watterson has warned against installing CCTV cameras as a reaction to specific incidents of vandalism.
In the House of Keys, he was urged by Bill Henderson (Douglas North) to review the increased use of CCTV to ‘protect the public from car vandalism and other opportunistic street crime’.
Mr Henderson’s question followed the incident of mass car vandalism in the south of the island last month when corrosive liquid was sprayed at around 70 vehicles.
But Mr Watterson said it was unrealistic to believe CCTV alone can counter wider anti-social issues and that perhaps of equal, if not greater importance was the use of street lighting as an effective deterrent. He said: ‘It is no easy panacea. We have to be careful not to install CCTV in residential areas on a reactionary basis in relation to one incident of multiple vandalism. We must remember the majority of residential areas have extremely low levels of crime. There are questions about whether the financial and civil liberties costs outweigh the benefits.’
He said investment in CCTV was a decision for local authorities.