Effect of closed circuit television on urban violence

Objective-To evaluate the effect of city and town centre closed circuit tel evision (CCTV) surveillance on violence in terms of accident and emergency (A&E) department and police assault data. Methods-A&E department and local police assault data in three centres in Wa les (Cardiff, Swansea, and Rhy1) two years before and two years after the i nstallation of CCTV were studied. British Crime Survey and police crime sta tistics were used as control data. Results-A&E records of 24 442 assault patients and 3228 violent offences re corded by the police were studied. Data from mio A&E departments (Swansea ( +3%) and Rhy1 (+45%)) showed increases in recorded assaults after CCTV inst allation but a decrease (12%) in the largest centre, Cardiff. There was an overall reduction in town/city centre violence from the A&E department pers pective of 1% in the two years after CCTV installation. In contrast, police data demonstrated changes in the opposite direction (-44%, -24%, and +20% respectively) contributing to an overall decrease of 9%. British Crime Surv ey and police statistics for England and Wales demonstrated no overall chan ge and a 16% increase respectively. Conclusion-City centre CCTV installation had no obvious influence on levels of assaults recorded in A&E departments. There was a negative relationship between police and A&E recording in all three centres. A&E departments are important and unique sources of information about community violence.