Need for an effective crime monitoring system

With the crime in cities on a rise;  the need is to look for smarter options to deal with it. Answers to this can be simple, but we tend to either complicate it by using technology in a wrong way.

Danish Manzoor

A proper CCTV surveillance of all major public places, intersections and religious establishments can help in containing crime to a great extent, besides checking other violations. If a robust system is put in place with real time monitoring at local P/S (not a centralized team, that system is flawed and makes no sense), crime in each P/s jurisdiction can be contained.

The need:

- High resolution CCTV cameras with at least 10 X optical zoom & night vision capability (not those useless ones, footage of which when zoomed pixelates and is of no use).
- Real time monitoring of cams in each P/S jurisdiction led by a team of one ASI, One HC and two CTs. (They will monitor, record and note irregularities if any in a log book).
- One QRT in each P/S / P/P which when alerted by the CCTV team can swing into action at moments notice. This QRT can also be used to respond to distress calls on 100.

What will this save:

- No need to place Naaka's unnecessarily. Unless a check point is to be set up following a tip-off.
- Visible reduction of police force from the streets.
- Jawans well-rested and well prepared to act and react.
- Effective monitoring of the areas.
- Will reduce the deployment costs (transportation, salaries, allowances if any).
- The screen grabs can be used as admissible evidence in courts. 
-The clarity of the grabs will be high, so identification of suspects will be easier.

and much more.

Initial costs might be high but this will eventually save a lot of money for the state government(s) and the police department(s). 

It has been observed that in the current set-up, most of the CCTV's installed are either non-functional or are down for need of maintenance.
Instead of getting in a private contractor, the Police department can (once funds and budgets are secured) train their own Telecom/Signal teams to lay cables and use their engineers to set-up the systems. The CCTV companies can impart this training free of cost. This way; no waiting for the local vendor to repair the CCTV's.

Back to basics


It has been observed that security agencies have been increasingly relying on Tech. Int (Tech Intelligence gathering) and totally ignoring the basics of Human Int (Human Intelligence). This may in the near future prove to be disastrous. It has already begun.

Cops have come to believe that technology can be used to avert, detect and solve all crimes; which may be true but not entirely. You cant always track someone's cell by triangulating or interpolating, but would it be wise to rely only on Tech Int.?

Human Int. over time has proved itself. If in simpler cases at P/P or P/S level the human int. network is strong; local crime and anything new or fishy in the area can be detected easily.

So time to go use tech well; and revisit the basics to keep the city / nation safe(r).