The Metro Police Strategic Surveillance Unit (SSU) has rolled out a number of interventions to better exploit its CCTV infrastructure, including introducing area-specific control rooms and improved sharing of information and trends with other enforcement and security agencies. This has resulted in a marked increase in detections.
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Between April and June 2023, the SSU detected 7 339 incidents, including crime, vandalism, motor vehicle accidents, fires and other miscellaneous incidents.
This was a 108% increase compared to the same period the previous year, when 3 524 incidents were detected.
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Among the reasons for the increase are the installation of additional cameras in areas like Bishop Lavis, Delft, Nyanga, Mitchell’s Plain and Kraaifontein; and the introduction of satellite CCTV control rooms in Retreat, Ocean View and Grassy Park, with local Neighbourhood Watch (NW) members monitoring the cameras for quick responses to detections by NW groups, SAPS and City enforcement agencies.
‘Apart from the growing camera network, our SSU has put in a lot of work to extract more value from its camera network. Thanks to improved information sharing with local police stations, our CCTV operators can do more effective monitoring in the right areas, and at the right times. We’ve also introduced refresher training for operators, and deployed experienced enforcement staff to the control rooms to help guide operators, and we have implemented improved work flows around the dispatching of units to an incident, using our integrated Emergency Policing Incident Command (EPIC) platform. As we fine-tune these processes in the coming months, it is expected that the arrest rate too will increase,’ said Mayoral Committee Member for Safety and Security JP Smith.
The SSU has grown its CCTV infrastructure to more than 1 100 installations.
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