You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘surveillance cameras’ tag.
Recently, in Atlanta, a couple posted a surveillance video on YouTube of three men burglarizing their home. Soon after, the three men were caught. It’s just one of the ways that social media is helping to decrease crime.
Social Media Increases Communication
The rise of web 2.0 and social media has enabled everyone to communicate faster and easier than ever before in the history of the planet. And these new communication tools are useful for more than just telling all your Facebook friends that you’re having spaghetti for dinner, they are having an impact on real-world situations, including crime.
Communication Decreases Crime
As little as 10 years ago, communicating with your local police department was a difficult, time-consuming process. Sure, citizens could read about crime in the weekly police blotter in the newspaper, or maybe hear about a handful of high-profile crimes on the local news, but to find out about crime in one’s own neighborhood required slogging down to the station, filling out paper work, and waiting. Likewise, police could do little to inform the public about crime in their area, save going door-to-door to tell everyone in the neighborhood what was going on.
Today, police and citizens have virtual two-way communication through web 2.0 technology like CrimeReports, Twitter, Facebook, or even text messaging. And as the avenues of communication increase, crime decreases. Eric Baumer, a criminologist at Florida State University in Tallahassee said, “It’s interesting in the sense that [crime has gone down] while the ability of citizens to surveil and connect to police” has gone up.
Citizens Want to Connect
When citizens have the ability to communicate and connect with their local law enforcement, they use it. If going down to the station to request crime reports was too time consuming in the past, now citizens can simply go to CrimeReports and see crime with a few clicks of a mouse or follow their local PD on Twitter.
With ease of communication comes more widespread adoption. Now that communication with law enforcement has become easier through web 2.0 tools, more people are tuning in, following, friending, and engaging in the conversation. And when more people are getting the information they need to keep themselves safe, more people are using that knowledge to protect themselves and prevent crime.
Get on the crime map at CrimeReports.com
Due to a lack of a maintenance contract for New Orleans’ citywide camera network, many of the cameras are inoperable. But just how many is unknown. There seems to be a general disagreement about the actual number of cameras installed and the number in operation. The city recently began accepting bids for camera maintenance for 252 existing cameras; however, Mayor Ray Nagin recently told the press that there are 242 total cameras and that all are operational. In addition, the city’s top-ranking technology officer said there are only 218 cameras around the city and only half were working. As well, a city councilman reported that in some districts, 80 percent are working and in others only 20 percent.
The crime cameras have been a hot-button issue for local politicians and law enforcement as they are in any city where crime cameras are introduced into the community, especially considering their questionable ability to deter or prevent crime.
Source: http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/05/condition_of_new_orleans_crime.html
Search crime in your neighborhood at CrimeReports.com
As has been true with other cities launching camera surveillance programs, Federal Way, Washington is experiencing a bit of controversy as they begin to monitor the city through 27 brand-new cameras. Although the cameras have already helped to identify a robber’s SUV and led to an assault conviction, the Washington chapter of the ACLU has been a vocal opponent of the system, calling it one step closer to creating a “surveillance society.”
As well as some complaints about government intrusion into citizen’s privacy, camera surveillance has not yet proven to be either a crime deterrent or to significantly reduce crime in any area where it has been implemented. So the debate rages on.
Source: http://www.thenewstribune.com/front/topphoto/story/755265.html
Search crime in your area at CrimeReports.com
The Telegraph just published a story about a study done by research in the UK who examined 44 studies done on the effectiveness of CCTV and found that the vast majority agreed that CCTV was generally ineffective at preventing crime. The only instance where CCTV was moderately effective was in parking lots, preventing some vehicle crimes. But that effectiveness was also found to be greater when accompanied by increased lighting and guards.
This study has specific importance to the UK because Britain has the largest public-funded CCTV network in the world, and British lawmakers stand to lose both public support and funding for CCTV if studies continue to find surveillance cameras ineffective at deterring crime.
Other posts about ineffectiveness of surveillance cameras:
Studies Question the Benefit of Surveillance Cameras
New Orleans Crime Cameras Come Under Fire
Is Chicago Relying to Heavily on Blue Light Surveillance Cameras?
Search crime in your neighborhood at CrimeReports.com
The Dallas Morning News today published a great profile of the Dallas fusion center, a hub of information for all Dallas law enforcement and intelligence. Such fusion centers are becoming increasingly important and easier to integrate across multiple departments as technological capability grows in scope and drops in price.
The article covers the function of the center, some successes, and some questions raised about privacy and surveillance issues. Click the link above for the full article.
Search crime in your neighborhood at CrimeReports.com
Scott Henson, of Grits for Breakfast, has just posted an interesting opinion and analysis of Dallas, Texas’ new surveillance camera network. The cameras were originally installed in order to reduce crime. But although the Dallas police say the project is working, the crime statistics say the opposite.
Henson sites recent, well-known research about the effectiveness of surveillance cameras, and questions whether a quarter of a million dollars per year is too much to pay for 100 cameras that don’t seem to reduce crime any more than regular police patrols. Read the full article by clicking the link above.
What is your opinion of surveillance cameras? Leave a comment.
Search crime in your neighborhood at CrimeReports.com
Directions Magazine just published a press release on Cadcorp’s CCTV Mapping System. The CCTV Mapping System uses GIS and aerial photography to provide a visualization of the location and field of view of CCTVs in a specified area. For more details on this announcement, click the link above.
Search crime in your neighborhood at CrimeReports.com
Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, Ph.D., recently wrote an essay on the amount of surveillance images and data that we are a part of everyday. The essay basically asks the question, when does a public need for information cross a line into invasion of privacy?
The essay is very interesting on multiple levels and makes you think about the way that government and law enforcement are heading toward increased surveillance (for example, the surveillance systems being implemented in Chicago and New Orleans), and how that might affect individual citizens. On the one hand, I want to make sure that my neighborhood and family are safe, but on the other hand, I don’t want a camera pointed at my living room window.
Go read the article here, and leave your thoughts in the comments section.
Search crime in your neighborhood at CrimeReports.com
The local CBS affiliate in Chicago recently reported on Mayor Daley’s decision to rely more on surveillance camera’s than actual police officers. Check out the embedded video below.
Can cameras replace beat cops? Leave a comment.
Although the effectiveness of crime cameras has recently been disputed by New Orleans and refuted by a study done at UC Berkeley, Washington DC police say that crime in DC was reduced in 2008 in part because of the use of the cameras. Specifically, crime was reduced within 1,000 feet of each camera location. Examiner.com reports that the camera system cost the city $4 million to install and consists of over 70 cameras.
Stumble It!
The Crime Map 