By Lilia Guan
NT Police are in the planning stages of expanding CCTV into smaller suburbs and filling blind spots in existing areas.
Shane Moten, system administrator at joint emergency services communications centre, NT Police, said CCTV has enabled them to provide another level of policing.
“The benefits are in incident detection both pre and post identifying people of interest and helping better manage anti social behaviour (ASB) and hotspots,” he said.
“Footage of people or incidents was recorded for use as evidence or to assist members with investigations in relation to offences.”
In December 2009, the NT Government and the Australian Government committed $8.6 million to establish a CCTV system to equip the Police with resources to help monitor and reduce anti-social behaviour on the streets of Darwin.
Mr Moten told Government News, NT Police worked closely with Darwin and Palmerston city councils to implement the cameras.
“DCC and PCC provided permission and also provided infrastructure for us to install our CCTV equipment onto,” he said.
“They, like us, are more than willing to work together to reduce the instances of ASB and help provide a safer city.”
According to Mr Moten the councils provided a range of services to help install and maintain the cameras.
“We have placed CCTV equipment in many public areas on council property. Consultation between them and us was required to ensure the system was installed and maintained,” he said.
“Things [the councils] do range from providing infrastructure and trimming of trees; informing us in advance of any works that may affect our CCTV; and in general ensuring that our system is operational and any obstacles in doing so are swiftly overcome.”
Although NT Police can’t claim CCTV has been the only thing to help reduce crime, the combination of the system with policing, has proven to be a valuable tool in “identifying and directing police to people and incidents of interest”, Mr Moten said.
“Pre and post CCTV surveys have revealed that the public perception of safety has increased due to the introduction of the system,” he said.
“Pre and post CCTV surveys have revealed that the public perception of safety has increased due to the introduction of the system,” he said.
According to Mr Moten the majority of public have been happy to see CCTV on city streets.
“All CCTV operators abide by a code of practice and are trained to use the CCTV system appropriately,” he said.
“Our CCTV system also allows us to set up and use privacy zones which automatically appear on the screen and blank out the view of private areas.”
Mr Moten said operators of the CCTV system were provided with training and were shown how to utilise the monitoring equipment.
“Once they mastered the use of the equipment, time was spent with each operator educating them on; what to look for; hotspots to cover; the types of things they can expect to see; and the action to be taken when such incidents occur.”
Darwin-based, security vendor, Security and Technology Services (STS) was chosen to deliver the project.
Darwin-based, security vendor, Security and Technology Services (STS) was chosen to deliver the project.
STS chose MIMP to design and deliver the wireless network to integrate the Darwin street cameras.
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