Crime watch

CCTV cameras that can determine if a crime is taking place and inform the nearest officers are being developed for the UK police.

Researchers at the University of Reading will adapt camera systems currently used to monitor traffic movements to enable them to identify crimes in action, in a project involving the Police Information Technology Organisation and the Home Office’s Police Scientific Development Branch (PSDB).

The project will focus particularly on volume crime such as car break-ins, said Dr James Ferryman from the University of Reading’s school of systems engineering.

Software developed by the school’s computational vision team is used in traffic monitoring systems worldwide, but its ability to recognise whether people are committing crimes is limited. Some crimes are more easily identified than others, said Ferryman. 'You can detect someone jumping over a barrier at an underground station more reliably than people fighting.’

The systems find it difficult to distinguish between people fighting and those simulating a fight, for example between drunk friends. They have problems telling the difference between drivers fumbling with keys to get into their cars and thieves tampering with locks.