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- A computer that can identify potential muggers or burglars
by analysing patterns of behaviour is being developed by scientists with
a £50,000 grant from the Government.
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- The pioneering computer will be fed with information
about how criminals act just before they are about to commit a crime and
will be pre-programmed with hundreds of video clips of examples. When surveillance
cameras pick up similar patterns of behaviour in real life the computer
will be programmed to recognise it as suspicious and police officers would
immediately be alerted.
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- At the moment, CCTV is often only of use after a crime
to see if the perpetrators were captured on video. This is because it would
be impossible to have staff continuously watching pictures from every camera
in a town centre. Dr Tom Troscianko and a team at the experimental psychology
department at Bristol University have been granted funds by the Engineering
and Physical Sciences Research Council to develop software that would do
the job instead.
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- The result, scientists believe, will be a computer that
could have a significant impact on inner-city crime. Mr Troscianko said:
"We are trying to establish that it is possible to spot certain actions
before a crime is committed which could help predict it." His team
is now engaged on collecting video clips of violent incidents and crimes
captured on CCTV from around Britain.
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- A team of volunteers will then analyse the few seconds
that lead up to the incident to identify the types of behaviour that occur
just before a crime takes place. This will include the type of gestures
criminals make before they strike, "casing" a target, or lurking
in the shadows. Movements of arms and legs that occur before a crime or
fight will be analysed to see if there is a pattern. The video sequences
of movements that best predict a criminal incident will be passed to computer
scientists to write software that recognises such behaviour.
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- Mr Troscianko said: "It's quite simple, although
writing the software will be complex." He is working with Thames Valley
Police to gather information and so far he has processed 30 video clips
of scenes preceding an incident. The new computer will in effect "watch"
all footage and alert the police. It will also recognise more obvious behaviour
such as punches being thrown.
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- CCTV has already proved effective in reducing crime in
inner cities. In the Newham area of east London, crime has dropped 35 per
cent since a scheme was introduced in October 1998. The computer is able
to match faces picked up by CCTV to those held on a database of known criminals
and can recognise the registration numbers of stolen cars.
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- The Home Office has allocated £20 million a year
to develop new CCTV schemes and ministers are anxious to get the new computer
systems in place.
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