In the past decade the Home Office has spent 78% of its crime prevention budget on CCTV, before assessing its effectiveness in deterring or detecting crime.
78% of their crime prevention budget! No wonder you never see a Police Officer on the street. A quick look at the home office website to find that the cost for all those cameras came to a figure of £170,000,000.
If you look at the average Plods pay, that equates to over 5600 extra police we could have patrolling our streets.
Or , hell, 8500 PCSOs