The question that I am very often asked is prefaced by, "I have an alarm system in my home/business, why would/do I need a CCTV system?" The answer is actually very simple. Your alarm system is designed to scare off an intruder that is attempting to gain entry into your home/business. However, not all intruders are frightened by an alarm. They know that once that alarm sounds, they will have anywhere from three (3) to 15 minutes to get in, take what they want, and get away before the police arrive...and this is if the alarm is monitored. Here is an example that I experienced not long ago while working for a retail store:

At around 2:00 AM I received a call from the alarm company's monitoring station that they had an alarm at the store and the police had been dispatched. The police officers arrived on scene 45 seconds after receiving the call (as noted in the police departments recording of the radio channel from dispatch to "on scene"). The thieves were nowhere around. They had broken into the store, stolen over $12,000 worth of merchandise, caused more than $5,000 worth of damage and left.

You may ask, "How can this be?"

Well, here's the rest of the story, what went on behind the scene:

• The alarm was received at the monitoring station at 1:58 AM.
• The police were called at 1:59AM
• Police call takers sent the call to the dispatch center at 2:01AM
• Police officers in the field were sent to the store by dispatchers at 2:02AM
• Police officers arrived on scene at 2:03AM (Note that this time to arrive at the store was very short due to the officers being nearby after just clearing another call three blocks away...normally the time to get to the alarm site is more like 3-5 minutes)

If the store had only had an alarm system, the police would have had a "dead-end" case. There were no fingerprints at the scene, no witnesses, and no other physical evidence. The case would have gone into a cold case file and still be setting around unsolved.

However, since the store had video of the incident we were able to get many critical pieces of information about the crooks. From the recordings we were able to ascertain that the burglary was committed by three hispanic males, all wearing hoods, masks, and gloves. All three suspects were thin built, about 5'8" to 5'10", wore blue jeans (one with a Puerto Rican flag patch), white tennis shoes, and one wore glasses. We knew that they were driving a stolen mini-bus from a nearby tranasportation business. They used a claw hammer to break the glass in the front door. We were also able to determine that they had "cased" the store a few hours earlier, wearing the same clothes.

All of this information gave the police information with which to begin investigating the crime. About 10 weeks later the police made three arrests in the case and they criminals are now awaiting trial on burglary, grand theft, felony criminal mischief, and grand theft auto charges.

This is an excellent example of one reason you should have a CCTV system in place. Another reason is that often criminals that see video cameras in, on, and/or around a home or business will often pick another place to victimize. The reason has to do with their thinking process. They want the easit job with the highest payout and the lowest risks. In your neighborhood, most homes will have similar things inside since similar types and classes of people live in the area. Given this, if the crook sees three houses on the street:
(A) a house with cameras and an alarm sign in the yard,
(B) a similar house with only an alarm sign, and
(C) a house with no visible cameras and no alarm sign
which house do you think the crook will go for?

The answer should be quite obvious...house (C) As my example above shows, house (B) would also be a fairly safe choice. However, house (A) is very high risk and the resident obviously takes security very serious.