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Mr. George Akom, an information Systems Expert, Educationist and the Assistant Registrar at Ghana Technology University, Kumasi Campus, believes that for the country to combat crime successfully and provide effective security in this modern era, it would be largely be dependent on information technology and surveillance systems that can provide real time monitoring of activities at various locations of the country and beyond.

He expressed worry about the past and present murders that have plagued the country and the difficulty in apprehending these culprits.

To him, considering how polarized every aspect of our daily lives are, not excluding political activities, issues bothering on corruption and indiscipline have become, it would require a different approach to fight insecurity.

He further stated that human to human policing without the support of technology and other surveillance systems would not provide any effective security to the citizens of the country.

“Although, police to citizen ratio is very crucial for our security and safety, effective policing which requires the provision of the needed sophisticated logistics, right and competent human resource, and responsive methodologies should be given priority." 

“The utility of public surveillance systems for crime prevention purposes is that potential offenders will refrain from criminal activity if they know they are being watched and believe they are at greater risk of apprehension,” he added.

He stressed that with the UN standard of at least one Police Officer to five hundred citizens which Ghana has a deficit, the country could do well to adopt technology and other modern security systems to address such challenges with regards to human resource.

"The use of these technologies and surveillance systems could provide the country with three primary approaches of addressing aspects of deterrence, forensic and interdiction of suspects and culprits," he added.

He opined that with the present situation where most criminals are adopting smart methodologies for their activities, it requires the security agencies to also be equipped with smart, intelligent and sophiscated surveillance systems to monitor all activities at all times, whether in the day or at night.