A Descriptive Review of the Use of CCTV in Flemish Municipalities

The use of CCTV-surveillance by Flemish municipalities is increasing. A newspaper analysis, complemented with other information gives a first indication about the developments in this field and shows an evolution in the implementation of CCTV in Flemish municipalities. In the beginning CCTV was used to protect spots where public services are delivered. In a next phase, a reduced number of Flemish municipalities turned to CCTV to protect public spaces. Thereafter, a highly reduced number of cities and municipalities started searching for more advanced CCTVsystems, in view of combatting certain specific phenomena. In this phase, the demand is more likely to come from local police forces that increasingly turn to policing methods inspired by the policing concept of ‘nodal orientation’. The last phase consists of a reduced number of municipalities in search of cooperation and integration of CCTV-systems, mostly for traffic management purposes (use of ANPR systems). Only a strict minority of the Flemish cities and municipalities showed reluctance towards the use of CCTV. Our data provided, allows an explanation of what factors have impacted on the attitudes of local authorities. The use of CCTV can be related to the geographical location of the municipality. All of the large cities as well as most of the medium and coastal cities in Flanders make use of it. Population density and a lack of sufficient police capacity in the community can be important. Political colour of local administrations did not prove to be a decisive factor. After adding these and other factors to an explanatory empirical model, we proceeded to predict correctly the odds for implementing ANPR-cameras for 60.3 per cent and the odds for implementing CCTV-cameras for 81.2 per cent of the Flemish municipalities. We found that the factors influencing the implementation of CCTV differed from the factors influencing the implementation of ANPR.