Study shows video surveillance on the Berlin underground has not improved safety

Heise Online
Oct. 12, 2007

In April 2006, a pilot project was launched in Berlin, in which train operators on three lines of the Berlin underground aimed to test the extent to which 24-hour video surveillance could reduce criminality. The pilot project included the U2, U6 and U8 lines. The Social Democratic Party, which strongly supported the project in the state parliament, anticipated a "general preventive effect."

An evaluation of the project commissioned from the Büro für angewandte Statistik was unexpectedly cancelled after receipt of an interim report. BVG, the company responsible for public transport in Berlin, stated that the pilot project had proved its worth in the detection of assaults and criminal damage and decided to extend the project to all 170 underground stations in Berlin by the end of the year.

Civil rights group The Humanist Union has now forced the BVG, which had previously declined to do so, to release the report (PDF file). According to the report, video surveillance and recording on the three underground lines did not reduce the incidence of criminality, but in fact led to a small increase.

Of a total of many thousands of criminal incidents, video material was available in only 78 cases. In only a third of these was the recording of sufficient quality to allow suspects to be identified. In particular, the cameras were not able to contribute to a higher detection rate regarding prevention of vandalism. The report suggests that in this case the reason no usable video recordings were obtained was that criminals were taking the cameras into account in planning their malfeasance.