Police‐Monitored Cameras and Crime*

Abstract

We study the effects of police monitoring on crime. We exploit detailed information on the location and date of installation of police-monitored surveillance cameras, coupled with data at the street-segment level on all reported crimes in the city of Montevideo, Uruguay. We find that the introduction of police-monitored surveillance cameras reduces crime by about 20 percent in monitored areas relative to a pure control group located outside the city. We also explore potential displacement effects, and we do not find evidence of such effects.

Private protection and public policing

“…More private investments in alarms or CCTV increase the benefits of public investments in policing, which in turn would induce others to adopt CCTV or install alarms. Munyo and Rossi (2019) find that installation of police monitored cameras in Montevideo reduce crime in the area of coverage by 20%, and that neighboring areas also benefitted from the reduction in crime, demonstrating the public good nature of specific investments in protection that reduce the value of crime and hence incentives for criminals to target even the unprotected households. Besley and Mueller (2018) use a calibrated model of firm investment in private protection against predation to demonstrate that public and private protection are not substitutes.…”

The effect of target, catchment, and comparison site operationalization on CCTV impact evaluations: methodological considerations from a case study

“…1 The use of the latter involves a process in which researchers 1 Another common operationalization of target sites is by means of facilities, an operationalization which is used when camera surveillance has been implemented within clearly delineated localities such as garages or parking lots (La or subway stations (Priks, 2015). In addition, some studies have operationalized target sites as streets or street segments that are under camera surveillance (e.g., Munyo & Rossi, 2020) or as a spatial area that, on the basis of information provided by implementers, is covered by camera surveillance (Gill & Spriggs, 2005;Waples et al, 2009). observe live camera feeds to digitalize precise individual viewsheds using geographic information system (GIS) software (Ratcliffe et al, 2009).…”

“…While there are multiple strategies for analyzing the impact of CCTV on crime, e.g., interrupted time-series analyses (e.g., McLean et al, 2013), difference-in-difference estimators (e.g., Munyo & Rossi, 2020), and multilevel regression models (e.g., Ratcliffe & Groff, 2019), the reason for using OR effect sizes in the current study is two-fold. First, the use of the OR is a robust analytical approach which has been employed in both independent studies (Cameron et al, 2008;Gerell, 2016;Waples et al, 2009) and meta analyses (Farrington et al, 2007b;Piza et al, 2019;Welsh & Farrington, 2009) examining the effect of CCTV on crime.…”

The Deterrent Effect of Surveillance Cameras on Crime

“…Piza et al (2019) present a systematic review of previous studies that we update in this brief summary. 7 Some evaluations find significant reductions in crime rates ranging from 18 to 57 percent (Armitage et al, 1999;Ditton and Short, 1999;Blixt, 2003;Brown, 1995;Caplan et al, 2011;Gill and Spriggs, 2005;Griffiths, 2003;Munyo and Rossi, 2019;Priks, 2015;Ratcliffe et al, 2009;Skinns, 1998). Others find significant increases of as high as 24 percent (Brown, 1995;Farrington et al, 2007;Gill and Spriggs, 2005; Winge and Knutsson, 2003).…”

“…There are three studies worth mentioning in more detail Priks (2015). andMunyo and Rossi (2019) use relatively large samples, which may render more precise results. Priks (2015) studies an installation program in the Stockholm subway system and finds that crimes dropped 25 percent at stations in the city center.…”