NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Royal Bahamas Police Force Assistant Commissioner of Information and Communication Technology Zhivago Dames said more than $7 million has been spent on CCTV in New Providence with plans to invest in more cameras in the fight against crime.
Dames said said that the first CCTVs had been installed as early as the year 2009 and as tech becomes more of an essential crime-fighting tool, the RBPF has plans to expand.
“The Royal Bahamas Police Force through the Ministry of National Security has embarked on a technological revolution and over the years we have installed to date 500 plus cameras throughout our hotspots in New Providence.”
Dames added that several CCTVs were installed in Abaco during the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee when the Duke and the Duchess visited and more will be installed in Abaco and other family islands.
“We have already done surveys in Grand Bahama to expand our CCTV network in Grand Bahama and it also would be expanded to Exuma.”
Over a year ago the police established a Real-Time Center where they monitor all the CCTVs at all the hotspots including the cameras in Abaco according to the Assistant Police Commissioner.
He explained that CCTVs are critical and vital to the crime fight noting that to date they have been instrumental in helping solve a number of crimes and in replaying traffic accidents.
“Just for this year alone between January and September there about, we would have had some 114 requests as it relates to matters that are on our streets or in those hotspots where CCTV is installed.”
Seventy-five of those matters were directly resolved because of footage that was accessed on CCTVs.
Murder, attempted murder, armed robberies, and vehicle break-ins are some of the crimes that Dames said have been solved with the help of CCTV technology, which is not only a help to police in criminal matters but also in road accidents.
“We have been capturing these accidents on our cameras and we are able to determine through the cameras the footage we received as to who was at fault for the accident.”
CCTVs have also been installed in various parks in the capital following the Wi-Fi in the Parks initiative that was rolled out this summer.
“A lot of children will be going to the parks to use Wi-Fi so in order to help keep them safe we would have installed CCTV on already ten of those parks that feed comes back to the police Real Time Crime Center so we can monitor those parks,” Dames said.
Loading ...
