Impact of the implementation of the video monitoring system on the prevalence of theft in the central area of the city of Guararema / SP

Abstract

The maintenance of adequate resources to guarantee public security is the duty of the State, and the municipality is responsible for managing and implementing strategies to prevent the occurrence of crimes, as well as to increase their resolution. Among the strategies adopted, the country stands out for the adoption by various municipalities of public video monitoring systems, which allow the monitoring of areas with greater circulation of people, as well as with a higher incidence of crimes. In this context, the municipality of Guararema, located in the State of São Paulo, implemented the video monitoring system in its central area, in association with policing, aiming at reducing the number of crimes, theft being the most prevalent crime. However, the effectiveness of video monitoring in preventing this crime is unknown. Thus, the present study aimed to compare the number of thefts during 24 months prior to the implementation of the video monitoring system with the 24 months following its implementation. For this, a survey and compilation of data referring to the total thefts, and their subdivisions into others and vehicles was carried out, as well as information about policing was obtained through the number of police scales, divided into ordinary scales and police scales. delegated activity, as well as the number of vehicles employed. The results demonstrate that there was no reduction in the average of thefts in the 24 months in the municipality, with the implementation of video monitoring (CVM) compared to the 24 months without video monitoring - SVM (CVM: 25.21 ± 6.11 vs. SVM : 23.25 ± 6.83, p = 0.37), and the theft distribution was 93.72% for other SVM thefts and 95.16% CVM, and vehicle thefts corresponded to 6.28% SVM and 4.84% CVM, with no significant differences (p = 0.83) between SVM and CVM. However, the average of thefts isolated in the central area of ​​Guararema decreased through the implementation of video monitoring (SVM: 7.46 ± 3.01 vs. CVM: 4.62 ± 1.58, p = 0.00), demonstrating the effectiveness of the system implementation in the central area of ​​the municipality. In addition, the number of ordinary policemen and vehicles did not change, except for the number of policemen assigned to the delegated activity, which decreased by 10.5% (~ -13 policemen / month) in the period of 24 months CVM compared to the SVM period . It was concluded that the video monitoring system was effective in preventing theft in the central area of ​​the city of Guararema, even by reducing the number of employees employed in the delegated activity.