Do surveillance cameras work? For what? You might ask, and rightly so. ?To reduce the rate of crime and (enable) the easy identification of offenders and criminals?, says the 2008-2009 budget.

For this Herculean ? if not impossible ? task, the government has allocated Rs 5 million in this year?s budget. This insignificant amount of money is added to the Rs 70 million that government budgeted last year for the same purpose and will be added to the Rs 145 million that government intends to earmark for the Police next year and in 2010.

The plans are grand but, unfortunately, they have remained plans up to now. In April, the acting commissioner of police signed an agreement with the Chinese authorities for the purpose of installing 340 closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras in high-risk regions, namely Port- Louis and Grand-Bay.

To date, there is no official CCTV camera filming away in the country. But while the project is in the process of being implemented, two high-profile cases have nearly been solved thanks to private surveillance cameras installed by private companies. A man brutally murdered a farmer a few days ago in Pailles. It only took a couple of days for the police to identify the suspect thanks to a surveillance camera installed on the premises. Two months ago, four rapists were found thanks to a surveillance camera installed by a private company in Flic-en-Flac.

No doubt, surveillance cameras work. While they may not in actual fact ?reduce the rate of crime? ? that debate is still ongoing in all places where CCTV cameras have been installed ? the UK has a record number of surveillance cameras where the average citizen is caught on CCTV cameras 300 times a day ? they help detect criminals and it?s as important in the fight against crime as prevention.

It?s impossible to say whether, without the cameras, the police would have identified the suspects in the two above-mentioned cases but the odds are that the resolution of any crime would have taken much longer without technology?s help.

And there is no shame in that if press articles from abroad are to be believed; two famous murder cases in the UK ? the Jill Dando murder in 1999 and the murder of three year-old James Bulger in 1993 ? were solved thanks to CCTV cameras. ?It showed the police that they were looking for two kids rather than a pedophile?, said UK criminologist Gloria Laycok to the BBC. In the Dando murder, CCTV footage showed the last movements of the BBC presenter before her murder.

The police in the UK believe that criminals are more likely to plead guilty when faced by undeniable evidence of being caught on camera; over and above the fact that a guilty verdict in court is a great money-saver, the police don?t have to resort to violence to obtain a confession anymore?

<I>?The police in the UK believe that criminals are more likely to plead guilty when faced by undeniable evidence of being caught on camera.?</I>

At home, private companies who had surveillance cameras on their premises have inadvertently helped the police to solve a few robbery cases. Other cases ? robbery or crime ? that could probably have been solved as easily haven?t been because private companies haven?t been kind enough to oblige and install surveillance cameras at their own expense.

This dependence on private companies is ongoing since the ministry of Tourism has recently appealed to private operators to have surveillance cameras installed ?to protect their tourists?. The official line is that surveillance cameras are expensive and the government will do its best to install CCTV cameras in Grand-Baie, Port-Louis and now, we hear, in Flic-en-Flac as well but security, especially of tourists, should be everybody?s concern.

In the meantime, the ?project? still stands good. ?The CCTV cameras will be installed on top of buildings and on posts,? says a police spokesperson. The problem is that installation of CCTV cameras as a means to combat crime has been mentioned for a good three years now. Last year, the minister of Finance budgeted Rs 70 million ? gracefully donated by the Chinese government ? to finance this project.

Despite all this, to all intents and purposes, CCTV cameras only exist on the premises of the port and the airport. All other surveillance cameras are owned by private companies. In the programme-based budget, the minister of Finance said that the performance indicator of this ?priority objective? ? i.e installation of CCTV cameras ? will be the ?operationalisation of the CCTV surveillance system by June 2009?. We?re only one year away.