| Does television have a part to play in helping the police? The Metropolitan Police would seem | ||
| to think so, and many a Cockney must have felt uncomfortable over the years as a direct result | ||
| of a mention on ITV's Police Five. But now police forces from all over Britain are co-operating | ||
| with the BBC in a new, different and larger-seale initiative, Crimewatch UK. | ||
| 5 | Aimed directly at involving the public in combating crime, this monthly program will employ | |
| a variety of devices. The central feature will be two or three reconstructions of crimes - as | ||
| accurate and detailed as possible - and each of these will be followed by an appeal from an | ||
| officer involved in the investigation. Viewers are invited to phone in, and a team of police | ||
| 'answerers' will be on hand to take their calls. | ||
| 10 | Now, one of the questions to ask about Crimewatch is: will it help catch criminals? Each | |
| programme will be followed by a ten-minute update, in which the presenters will report any | ||
| progress made on the night, and subsequent programmes will follow up earlier stories. But what | ||
| sort of results can be expected? Interestingly, there are pointers: a similar type of program, | ||
| under the title Aktenzeichen XV, was broadcast over five years in West Germany. In that period | ||
| 15 | it resulted in 155 prosecutions. It also attracted large audiences and, according to opinion polls, | |
| had a 'very positive effect' on viewers. But that, of course, was in another country - and one with | ||
| notably more authoritarian public attitudes. | ||
| However, even in Germany the program came in for criticism, on the grounds that it | ||
| pre-empted the decisions of the courts, hounded minor offenders rather than big-business | ||
| 20 | criminals, neglected social and environmental factors, and encouraged anonymous accusations. | |
| These points could all, to some extent, be answered, but even the police had some criticisms: | ||
| the programme could teach the skills of, for example, burglary, if reconstructions were too | ||
| accurate; the offender might be helped by discovering the present state of police investigations | ||
| into his crime ; and he might also be led to destroy evidence, or even threaten or kill witnesses, | ||
| 25 | in the light of that knowledge. | |
| It would seem that no serious undesirable consequences of Aktenzeichen XY actually came to | ||
| pass, but no doubt criticism of Crimewatch will arise along much the same lines. And in Britain it | ||
| will not be easy to defend the program in the German manner, as in this quotation from a | ||
| criminologist's report on XV: 'Any member of the public may reasonably be expected to produce | ||
| 30 | proof of identity, to accompany a police officer to the station and to have his or her fingerprints | |
| taken in order to establish that he/she is not the wanted offender.' Tell that to the NCCL*. | ||
| But it is inevitable, and in many ways desirable, that television will find itself playing an | ||
| increasing role in combating crime. The ever-increasing mobility of criminals, and the growing | ||
| sophistication of some of them, demand a nationwide approach, an appeal to the watching | ||
| 35 | millions rather than the few passing the station noticeboard. The mood of the moment favours | |
| public participation in 'crime-fighting' and, in many overstretched areas of policing, it is | ||
| becoming almost essential. So the time is ripe for Crimewatch UK. Those reconstructions should | ||
| pull in the viewers, and it will be interesting to see what will be the outcome. | ||
| Nigel Andrew in The Listener, May 31, 1984 |