Police camera footage helped solve over 1,600 cases
SINGAPORE — More than 1,600 cases were solved last year with the help of footage from police cameras across the island, said the police on Friday (Feb 10) as they gave details about the expansion of the programme.
From now until 2019, cameras will be installed at about 2,500 locations, while the police are also testing new capabilities, such as video analytics, to boost their crime-fighting capabilities. Video analytics can, for instance, recognise and detect certain behaviours caught on camera, such as fights, said deputy director of the police’s operations department Assistant Commissioner of Police Jarrod Pereira.
The expansion of the police camera plan — dubbed PolCam 2.0 — was announced by Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam during the Police Workplan Seminar in April last year. Under the plan, more than 11,000 surveillance cameras will be installed in public areas such as neighbourhood centres, hawker centres, and walkways leading to transportation nodes such as MRT stations and bus interchanges.
Installations began in June last year, and by the end of next month, 1,385 cameras would have been installed. The first phase of the PolCam plan, which began in April 2012, focused on fitting police cameras at access points to HDB blocks and car parks. About 3,400 video clips from police cameras helped solve more than 1,600 cases, including unlicensed moneylending, theft and outrage of modesty offences, the police said at a briefing on the annual crime statistics on Friday (Feb 10).
As of July last year, more than 62,000 cameras have been installed in all 10,000 public housing blocks and multi-storey car parks. The police said they will continue to install cameras at new HDB blocks and multi-storey car parks.
Ang Mo Kio Central was among the first estates to have cameras installed in public areas under the PolCam 2.0 plan, and residents have noticed the positive effect of the increased surveillance, said grassroots leaders.
Immediate past chairman of the Yio Chu Kang Zone 4 residents’ committee Kelvin Wang said residents have commented that their estate has felt safer after the police cameras were put up.
Residents have also been more willing and confident about stepping forward to report any possible crimes, he added.
Hawker Tan Chuan Lee, who is also the secretary of the Yio Chu Kang Block 724 Market Food Centre area sub-committee, said break-ins have become less frequent. The 60-year-old also noted that they now encounter fewer incidents of people causing nuisance at the food centre.
