Closed-circuit television (CCTV): surveillance and monitoring systems that provide remote visual, and occasionally audio, images of public and private spaces. As technology has advanced, facial recognition and other software have enhanced the power of CCTV systems. A central component of situational crime prevention strategies the impact on the detection and deterrence of criminal and disorderly behaviour are widely-heralded, even though the research evidence on the effects of CCTV often tends to be equivocal. It is frequently claimed that Britain has the highest ratio of CCTV cameras to population of any country in the world.

‘Hot spots’ policing: a method of organising the deployment of police resources that recognises that crime and disorder tend to be concentrated into certain places and occur at certain times. By using computer-aided mapping systems police managers can make more effective use of resources, although this might mean that less-directed patrol work, popular with the public, is marginalised.