Helsinki to install more surveillance cameras to busy public areas

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      The City of Helsinki is to acquire 25 surveillance cameras to monitor busy public areas. Furthermore, the lighting will be improved in some parks, including Kaivopuisto Park.
      The surveillance cameras will be used by the police but the city will purchase, install, and maintain them. The new cameras will be installed at the central railway station, Kamppi, Kluuvi, Alppiharju, Kallio, Kannelmäki, and Itäkeskus.
      "The intention of the new CCTV cameras is not to reduce or remove the police presence on the street, on the contrary. The aim is to have more resources to release officers for patrols. A policeman on the beat can prevent more crimes than a bagful of new means", says police commissioner Jukka Riikonen from the Helsinki Police Department.
     
CCTV surveillaince will be conducted from the police command and communication centre, which is currently being built. "There will be enough resources for that because we are on duty 24 hours a day anyway", Riikonen believes.
      "We have started to purchase the cameras immediately. The Public Works Department will be responsible for the installation and maintenance of the cameras", says head of division Hannu Hakala from Helsinki City Office's General Division.
      Hakala was also the head of the working group, consisting of city and police management, which was appointed in August to make a study of the purchase of surveillance cameras.
      The improvement of lighting and the new surveillance camera system will cost the city approximately 250 000 euros.
     
Surveillance cameras are believed to prevent crimes and help police to solve them. Negative public attitudes to such cameras - and there are already a great many of them in the city, monitoring traffic intersections and railway stations and protecting property and ATMs - are thought to have subsided of late.
      A further consideration in the acquisition of the additional CCTV resources now is that Finland will be holding the rotating EU Presidency next year, and Helsinki will also be hosting the ASEM summit in the latter half of 2006.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  LINKS: Surveillance cameras reduce vandalism at Tampere school (7.12.2004)

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