Vigilance can confirm that Reveal Media has just received the official results from the trial it participated in over Christmas. Door supervisors of fifteen Glasgow nightclubs and some taxi marshals working outside the clubs wore cameras attached to their jackets. Five of the nightclubs involved trialled Reveal Media’s CARMACAM RS2.
In the UK, door supervisors record thousands of incidents a year. The statistics from the trial have just been released and they show a 20% overall reduction in incidents from last year’s festive season. This was during a 57% increase in other crime over the trial period. Imagine how much safer the public would be if all door supervisors had Body-Worn Video recording devices.
Vigilance learnt that the cameras were used to record drunken and unruly patrons of the clubs and monitor potential incidents. When door supervisors saw someone acting suspiciously, they started recording on the body-worn cameras. They even managed to take footage of one of the club’s patrons holding a knife. The recording was used to prove the person’s guilt and the incident was dealt with efficiently. The person immediately pleaded guilty and was passively taken away by the police. This was one of three incidents where a person immediately pleaded guilty because they had been filmed.
Reveal Media’s CARMACAM RS2 was reported as the most popular camera out of its competitors. More than half the venues involved said the camera gave their door staff more confidence. It was also considered the best presented device and the best in terms of application with its easy clip-on mechanism called Clickfast.
The five clubs using the CARMACAM RS2 had the added bonus of an outwards-facing screen. Patrons were able to see not only that they were being filmed, but how they looked if they acted aggressively. It has a recorded calming effect in at least 2 cases where the customer had been exhibiting challenging behavior. As soon as they were told they were on camera their behaviour altered immediately. Recording incidents is a proven method of easier conviction, but a public-facing screen has been proven to stop incidents before they happen.