Camera surveillance in Amsterdam, does it work?

Camera surveillance is only allowed temporarily

Camera surveillance is only allowed to be used temporarily according to Dutch law and Amsterdam’s CCTV (closed circuit television) policy. Districts which want to use camera surveillance are required to ask permission to the mayor every 2 years. In recent years the central district has carried out several evaluations to substantiate the renewal application. The evaluation was carried out by DSP Group and showed several findings of which the following are some:

Decrease in crime, no improvement in feelings of safety

The evaluation shows that the objective safety has significantly improved since the introduction of CCTV cameras in both areas. The percentage of residents that was a victim of some form of nuisance or crime in 2009 has been halved compared to 2003. Especially drug-related crime and drug nuisance have been greatly reduced. There is also no evidence that these phenomena have moved to other places. However, subjective safety in the areas under surveillance remained unchanged since the introduction of CCTV. People did not feel safer over the past 2 years. The percentage of people that feel unsafe within these 2 neighbourhoods at some point is twice as much as the average of the whole Amsterdam area.

Preventive action

Judging from research and experience of professionals from both camera surveillance sites, it has been found that CCTV has a preventive effect on calculative offenders. These are offenders that take into account the consequences of their actions and the risks. Calculative offenders are found especially in drug dealing, street robberies and assaults. The cameras have no, or at most a small effect on impulsive offenders often under the influence of alcohol or emotionally charged acts. Impulsive offenders - that give very little thought to camera surveillance - are responsible for nuisance (noise, vandalism) and violence (also within the partying scene).

Costs and benefits of camera surveillance in Amsterdam

An important aspect of camera surveillance, which usually receives little attention in evaluations, are the costs and benefits of CCTV. The purchase cost for the 2 areas in Amsterdam was € 650,000. Those costs were made in 2004 and can now be regarded as written off. However, there are structural costs, especially for live monitoring and maintenance of hardware and software. These costs amounted to € 473,000 in 2009 - and fall into different parts. The Amsterdam City Centre District and the City of Amsterdam as a whole jointly funded the placement of cameras, maintenance, management and daily live supervision. Unfortunately it proved impossible to determine the benefits of camera surveillance in a reliable way, especially since it is impossible to determine what exactly the contribution of the cameras have been within the total package of measures taken to improve safety within these 2 areas. However, this research does suggest clearly where profit can be made. On the one hand, savings can be made on parts of the camera project which are very expensive, for example especially the live surveillance cameras are costly and show little. Alternatively, CCTV can be used to focus on types of offenses that incur high (social) costs, such as violent crimes and less on crimes that cost less, such as shoplifting.