Modern technologies in the fight against crime: Public camera systems in the Czech Republic

Modern technologies in the form of public camera systems have become an integral part of Czech cities. They are being used to reduce crime and are constantly expanding with the help of government funding. This happens despite the fact that empirical testing of such systems shows only limited benefits in the fight against crime. The aim of this paper is to map the use of modern technologies to combat crime in the largest cities in the Czech Republic. The paper first presents legislative framework of their use and also clarifies justifications and processes of their implementation. The research was carried out by means of information requests sent to selected municipal police and subsequent descriptive analysis of the number of cameras and indicators of their effectiveness. The main finding of the paper is that Czech cities use tens to hundreds of public cameras within public camera systems, despite the fact that in many cases, they do not even record the basic statistics on which their effectiveness could be examined.