Special Service Area commissioner Katy Hogan wonders if the Chicago Police Department Blue Light cameras are invisible, (meaning they don't seem to be working at stopping crime) yet she and her fellow commissioners approved the buying of more security camera's with Special Service Area #24 tax money in 2007.
Like hiring a lame private security company for three months in 2005 - costing the taxpayers a extra $25,000!
How about this one. A Chicago Police officers wife asks, "Are the cameras there just to give the citizens a false sense of security?"
Blognotes: A super big hat tip to Mark Brown for covering this security camera issue. A well written, articulate article with nice quotes included. I'd link you to my blog roll, but you're not a blog.
3 comments:
I'll say it again, the cameras are a failed experiment. The criminals just move out of range, and the things aren't monitored, and what's worse, they're very ugly and make the street look like a prison yard.
Get rid of them.
Britain is ahead of us in cameras, and unlike us they systematically study the results.
The impact of CCTV: fourteen case studies
... just two systems demonstrated a statistically significant reduction in recorded crime ...
... where there were initial suggestions of success, any measured change in
crime following CCTV installation could not always be attributed to CCTV ...
Overall, the impact of CCTV has been variable. ... In short, it is important to remember that the characteristics of areas and the crime problems generated in them varies considerably, and the suitability of CCTV will depend, at the very least, on the nature of those problems, the presence of other measures, and the commitment and skills of management and staff to making CCTV work. The belief that CCTV alone can counter complex social problems is unrealistic in the extreme. At best CCTV can work alongside other measures to generate some changes, but it is no easy panacea, and there is a lot still to be learnt about how to use it to best effect.
Assessing the impact of CCTV
Assessed on the evidence presented in this report, CCTV cannot be deemed a success. It has cost a lot of money and it has not produced the anticipated benefits...
Too much must not be expected of CCTV. It is more than just a technical solution; it requires
human intervention to work to maximum efficiency...
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