IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/socarx/eh5bg.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The effect of public surveillance cameras on crime clearance rates

Author

Listed:
  • Jung, Yeondae
  • Wheeler, Andrew Palmer

    (University of Texas at Dallas)

Abstract

Much research has examined the crime reduction benefits of public close-circuit television (CCTV) cameras, suggesting that cameras may not deter enough crime to justify their cost. Another benefit of CCTV though is its utility in investigations and in clearing cases, which has been much less studied. Using a sample of public crimes and case clearances in Dallas, Texas, we examine the efficacy that public CCTV cameras increase case clearance rates using a pre-post research design. We find that cases closer to cameras did have an increased clearance rate after the cameras were installed in Dallas. But the effects faded quite quickly in space, and were mostly limited to thefts. While our estimates here suggest the cameras are likely not cost-effective in this sample in terms of increasing clearances, it suggests there is potential to be more targeted in camera placement that might provide better justification for their (limited) use.

Suggested Citation

  • Jung, Yeondae & Wheeler, Andrew Palmer, 2019. "The effect of public surveillance cameras on crime clearance rates," SocArXiv eh5bg, Center for Open Science.
  • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:eh5bg
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/eh5bg
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/5d5596bf6e9c70001bfe5a3a/
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/eh5bg?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brandon C. Welsh & David P. Farrington, 2008. "Effects of Closed Circuit Television Surveillance on Crime," Campbell Systematic Reviews, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 4(1), pages 1-73.
    2. Roberts, Aki, 2008. "The influences of incident and contextual characteristics on crime clearance of nonlethal violence: A multilevel event history analysis," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 61-71, March.
    3. Baskin, Deborah & Sommers, Ira, 2010. "The influence of forensic evidence on the case outcomes of homicide incidents," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 1141-1149, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gian Maria Campedelli, 2022. "Explainable Machine Learning for Predicting Homicide Clearance in the United States," Papers 2203.04768, arXiv.org.
    2. Beauregard, Eric & Martineau, Melissa, 2014. "No body, no crime? The role of forensic awareness in avoiding police detection in cases of sexual homicide," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 213-220.
    3. Francesca Spina, 2015. "Environmental Justice and Patterns of State Inspections," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 96(2), pages 417-429, June.
    4. Tillyer, Marie Skubak & Tillyer, Rob & Kelsay, James, 2015. "The nature and influence of the victim-offender relationship in kidnapping incidents," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 43(5), pages 377-385.
    5. August Daniel Sutmuller & Marielle den Hengst & Ana Isabel Barros & Pieter van Gelder, 2020. "Getting the Perpetrator Incorporated and Prioritized in Homicide Investigations: The Development and Evaluation of a Case-Specific Element Library (C-SEL)," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(17), pages 1-19, September.
    6. Matzopoulos, Richard & Bloch, Kim & Lloyd, Sam & Berens, Chris & Bowman, Brett & Myers, Jonny & Thompson, Mary Lou, 2020. "Urban upgrading and levels of interpersonal violence in Cape Town, South Africa: The violence prevention through urban upgrading programme," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 255(C).
    7. Campedelli, Gian Maria, 2022. "Explainable machine learning for predicting homicide clearance in the United States," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    8. Doerner, William M. & Doerner, William G., 2010. "Police Accreditation and Clearance Rates," MPRA Paper 86547, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Aug 2010.
    9. Chopin, Julien & Beauregard, Eric & Bitzer, Sonja, 2020. "Factors influencing the use of forensic awareness strategies in sexual homicide," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    10. Boccio, Cashen M. & Beaver, Kevin M. & Schwartz, Joseph A., 2018. "The role of verbal intelligence in becoming a successful criminal: Results from a longitudinal sample," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 24-31.
    11. Doerner, William G. & Doerner, William M., 2008. "The Diffusion of Accreditation Among Florida Police Agencies," MPRA Paper 86545, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Apr 2009.
    12. Vaughn, Paige E., 2020. "The effects of devaluation and solvability on crime clearance," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    13. Chopin, Julien & Beauregard, Eric & Bitzer, Sonja & Reale, Kylie, 2019. "Rapists' behaviors to avoid police detection," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 81-89.
    14. Emily C Keats & Aamer Imdad & Jai K Das & Zulfiqar A Bhutta, 2018. "PROTOCOL: Efficacy and effectiveness of micronutrient supplementation and fortification interventions on the health and nutritional status of children under‐five in low and middle‐income countries: a ," Campbell Systematic Reviews, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 14(1), pages 1-36.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:eh5bg. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://arabixiv.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.