Geshina Ayu Mat Saat, who is a criminologist attached to Universiti Sains Malaysia, said setting up CCTVs worked to an extent, especially in protecting potential victims within that area, but it did not address behavioural problems such as bullying.
She said having CCTV cameras as a mechanism to monitor and collect evidence only addressed the location and time where crimes had a higher likelihood of occurring.
“It is very likely that bullying happens elsewhere where there are no CCTVs and the chances of getting caught are lower,” she said.
She was commenting on a statement by Deputy Education Minister P Kamalanathan who said the installation of CCTV cameras at high-risk schools had contributed to a drop in bullying cases from 3,448 in 2016 to 2,795 in 2017.
Kamalanathan said this at the Dewan Rakyat in reply to a question from Selayang MP William Leong on the use of CCTV cameras in schools to monitor crime and ensure student safety.
Geshina said the answer given by Kamalanathan only mentioned the drop in overall incidents but did not mention how much the actual drop was in such cases in schools where CCTVs were located.
“It would be interesting to study this. Pre- and post-research findings elsewhere indicate a time frame where crime drops with the presence of working CCTVs.
“But after three to six months or so, the rate steadily increases as criminals become better able to distinguish fake from real CCTVs.”
Factors that hindered CCTV effectiveness included the time needed for action to be taken by security and plausible denial of wrongdoing due to the position and poor quality of CCTV, she added.
She said in addition to the CCTV system, efforts should be made to understand where and why children learn to bully.
She said factors that influenced a child’s likelihood of committing delinquent acts – such as the presence or development of antisocial traits, hostility, older delinquent peers, negative family environments as well as social learning of negative attitudes and actions – should also be addressed.