Mayor: You’re being viewed
ANOTHER 100 CCTV cameras will be watching the city at next year’s Commonwealth Games and Mayor Tom Tate wants them to stay permanently.
The state and federal governments will add to the camera network for the Gold Coast’s biggest ever event.
“The state and federal governments are investing heavily in CCTV for GC2018 (the Commonwealth Games) and I will be calling on them to leave that infrastructure in place post GC2018, as a legacy gift to our city,” Cr Tate said.
“This could see an additional 100-plus cameras added to our network. That’s the message I want every criminal to read – you’re being watched.”
Council has tripled the number of cameras in the city in the past decade – going from 73 in 2006 to 267 today.
Last financial year, council responded to 450 police requests for footage and recorded 6382 “incidents of note”.
Mayor Tom Tate said the number would only increase in preparation for the largest sporting event in the city’s history in April next year. “We make no apologies for doubling the number of CCTV cameras across the city, since 2012.”
Regional Crime Coordinator Detective Superintendent Kerry Johnson said while footage was a useful way to solve crime, CCTV cameras also served as a deterrent to criminals and as a “pacifier” for the general public.
“Cameras are a force multiplier,” he said.
“People conjure up these evil thoughts when we say ‘big brother’ but it’s big brother providing security.
“In a passive way, it provides a security blanket over a lot of big areas where we just don’t have the staff.
“When an incident does happen, it allows us to actively follow that person from one camera to the next or track where they’ve gone or where they’ve been.”
The cameras have failed to stem an increase in overall crime on the Coast, with spikes in robbery (18 per cent), domestic violence breaches (14 per cent), assaults (nine per cent), break and enters (eight per cent) and weapons offences (five per cent) in the six months to May when compared to the same period last year.
However, a Griffith University study found assaults in Surfers were not “significantly higher than elsewhere on the Coast”.
Detective Superintendent Johnson said he would throw his support behind a proposal for cameras introduced for the Games to stay on the Coast.
“It’s a very non-intrusive way of providing security. To go and do that with police, it would mean hundreds of officers inefficiently waiting around for something to happen.”
Mayor Tate said the public had nothing to fear from CCTV cameras. “Law-abiding residents and visitors embrace CCTV. It is only the criminals and civil libertarians who object.”