Just before Christmas, in the eastern English town of Ipswich, police arrested and charged a forklift operator for the murder of five prostitutes, whose deaths fired popular imagination and comparisons to serial killings of the past.

In a month, the five women, aged between 19 and 24 had gone missing. Their nude bodies were found in areas not far from the town's red-light district where they operated. The British public feared that a new 'Jack the Ripper' was on the prowl.

If Steve Wright, 48, is eventually convicted of these killings, a relatively cheap form of technology, ubiquitous in Britain, would have played no small part in the solution of the crime. Police had used closed circuit television (CCTV), aboard a train, to develop some understanding of the movements of one of the victims, Anneli Alderton, 24, on the day she is believed to have gone missing.

Moreover, Ipswich police reviewed more than 10,000 hours of CCTV footage from cameras in the town's red-light district, trying to piece together patterns of movement, including vehicles that visited the area, and who came and went into them. Such footage helped the police to identify a suspect. Significantly, there are 46 public and private CCTV cameras in the fewer than six roads in Ipswich's red-light district.

Our point to this, of course, is to highlight how effectively CCTV has been used in crime detection and solution in the United Kingdom and just how we have dithered on their installation in Jamaica.

It's been nearly four years since Security Minister Dr. Peter Phillips first announced that such cameras would be put up in some streets and public places in the Corperate Area. A handful was in fact installed, but not much happened.

The facility provided to the police to monitor these cameras was inadequate. But worse, with the lack of official enthusiasm, there was no real policy commitment for the project and people got bored. Cameras were stolen from under the noses of the police. Yet, given the role of CCTV cameras in providing information in at least one high-profile case in the capital, the Jamaican police, as those in Britain, should be sold on the effectiveness of the system.

Whatever the cause of the reluctance of the Jamaican authorities to be aggressive about the installation and use of CCTV, it can't, we expect, be money. The technology is affordable, even for Jamaica.

Moreover, if money is really an issue, the Government can find creative ways to ensure coverage on the cheap. Private firms, for instance, might be invited to install CCTV cameras in public areas around their premises and have these linked into police surveillance systems. Similarly, groups of firms could finance cameras for public spaces and on roads near to where they operate. Even citizens' groups might be asked to fund cameras in their communities.

These systems need not be monitored by police officers, thus tying up personnel who might be better used in hands-on police duties. Neighbourhood watch groups as well as other community organisations can source volunteers to help in this regard. We need only think out of the box.

Perhaps, the recent announcement that the Tourism Enhancement Fund will provide CCTV cameras for Montego Bay's hip strip is a signal that the Government may be getting serious about the practical use of this technology.