Wollongong's network of security cameras is catching crooks and thieves at a rate of more than one per day - and the high-quality footage is helping to ensure they are successfully prosecuted.About 60 closed circuit televisions have been recording action on streets across the city since January, in addition to 40 cameras installed in Crown St Mall in January, 2007. Together, the cameras have helped track scores of suspects and resulted in 1450 arrests in the past three years.
EDITORIAL: CCTV emerges as key weapon in crime fight They also saved $500,000 in credit card fraud and helped to recover more than $125,000 in stolen goods, according to Wollongong City Centre.Most arrests relate to shoplifting, but assaults, robberies, credit card scams and other crimes also have been caught on tape."There's a whole range of things the cameras have helped to detect," Wollongong City Centre general manager Paul Fanning said."There's been assaults, drunk behaviour, sexual assaults, general assaults and fights," he said."The cameras are like eyes on the street."So it gives you the ability to detect criminal behaviour that was before installation unable to be detected. People got away with things, now they're not getting away with it."Even unsuspecting males relieving themselves in public have been surprised to discover they were being watched. At least five men were fined in Wollongong Local Court for urinating in public following a police operation on May 13 and 15.The number of shoplifters, particularly around Crown St Mall, has decreased following a dramatic rise in arrests when the first cameras were installed."Now (the cameras are) over the wider city centre ... they're getting other types of crime and the shoplifting has reduced," Mr Fanning said.The high quality security footage is making convincing evidence in dozens of court cases. "Graphic and disturbing" CCTV footage that clearly showed an assault outside a 7-Eleven store in Crown St, Wollongong about 2am on March 5, which almost killed the victim, was played in Wollongong Local Court during the appearances of two men charged over the incident.Ricky Steven Szwanka and Murray Pearson, both 19, were jailed after pleading guilty to affray and assault occasioning actual bodily harm.Wollongong acting crime manager detective senior sergeant Brad Ainsworth said the security footage played a key role in convicting the men."Once they were arrested, the offenders were interviewed and put before the court and the court gets to look at the footage and the picture tells a thousand words. For something like that it was quite graphic."