CCTVs Aid BPS To Catch Criminals
FRANCISTOWN: Botswana Police Service (BPS) deputy public relations officer, senior superintendent Near Bagali has revealed that surveillance cameras installed in Gaborone and Francistown have detected 791 crimes since 2019. Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) was introduced by BPS as their infinite mission to aid in the prevention of crime by detecting the crimes in real-time.
In addition, the high-resolution cameras by Huawei would assist the police find evidence, crime detection and recovery of goods adding that such cameras could be used to identify criminals. Bagali told The Monitor that surveillance cameras have become a critical tool in preventing crimes and supporting investigations.
He added that CCTV brings evidence in terms of captured videos when detecting the crimes hence assisting in resolving some of the unsolved crimes. He also said that CCTV captures everything that has happened in the visibility of the camera and makes it easier to detect crimes even in the absence of law enforcers.
Bagali said that just recently they were able to detect seven major cases through CCTVs. When going into detail on the statistics, he revealed that in 2019 they detected 130 cases as compared to 460 cases, which were detected in 2020 in Gaborone only through the aid of surveillance cameras. He added that the second city started operating the surveillance camera a bit later than the capital city, only registered 201 crimes detected by CCTV between October and November 2020.
Bagali said that CCTV cameras have also helped in detecting traffic crimes, giving an example that in the past most traffic offenders disobeyed road signs and went unpunished but now all they do is watch the CCTV cameras and track the wrongdoers. He said: “Recently, we managed to apprehend a certain man who was wanted in connection with a murder near Galo Mall through the help of CCTV cameras in Francistown”.
Bagali said that they planned to introduce the police monitored cameras in all the towns and major villages, but they were limited by financial constraints. He said that for now, they have deployed their resources in other areas, which do not have police monitoring cameras to prevent crime in the areas.
He also said that most of the crimes detected by CCTV cameras include traffic offences, petty crimes such as, pickpocketing, shoplifting, smash and grab, which run together with major crimes such as robbery and murder.