Abstract

Commercial surveys of public attitudes to open street CCTV schemes in the UK typically suggest that over 90% of the population are in favour of the cameras. Professional research usually shows much lower levels of support - typically at the 60%-70% level. Suspecting that both sampling and question framing may have an effect here, a street sample of 308 pedestrians was interviewed in September 1996. One third were asked three pro-CCTV questions before being asked whether or not they were in favour of CCTV; one third were asked three anti-CCTV questions before being asked whether or not they were in favour of CCTV; and one third were just asked whether or not they were in favour of CCTV. The results were startling: 91% of the pro-CCTV group were in favour of CCTV, 56% of the anti-CCTV group were in favour of CCTV, and 71% of the neutral group were in favour of CCTV. The sampling technique adopted removes the sampling biases introduced by commercial surveys. Thus, if the apparent 20% acceptance introduced by question framing is subtracted from the 69% in favour discovered in a previous professional survey conducted by the author, then only 49% - a sizeably minority, but a minority nevertheless - are in favour of open street CCTV.