New Haven Independent

Crime Cameras On Their Way?

by Thomas MacMillan | August 20, 2009 3:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (19)

With a few clicks of a mouse, city cops like Sgt. Bob Muller may soon be watching surveillance videos of high-crime neighborhoods on their computers.

A new grant from the feds would allow the city to upgrade its secure internet system and install 30 surveillance cameras throughout New Haven. The proposed cameras are designed to transmit video wirelessly over the internet, which police officers could monitor on new laptops.

On Wednesday night, the City Plan Commission approved a proposal for the city to apply for a $1 million grant from the Department of Justice’s COPS Office. The grant would pay for the installation of a secure wireless network throughout the city. The network would allow police officers to transmit mugshots, fingerprint data, and video securely over the internet. The grant would also pay for 30 wireless cameras that would be installed in the most crime-ridden areas of the city, and provide cops with 10 laptops to watch the footage.

The grant application needs the final approval of the Board of Aldermen before it can be sent out to the feds.

The wireless system was one of several big-money applications to the federal government that were approved by the City Plan Commission on Wednesday night. The commission also green-lighted grant applications for $3 million for traffic signal upgrades, $4.5 million for fire station improvements, and $2 million for increased port security.

Sgt. Muller (pictured), who has been acting as a liason between the city’s police and information technology departments, said that the project would provide a much-needed upgrade for an outdated system. Currently cops in squad cars have to use a radio frequency to transmit data from their laptops. It can take 20 or 30 minutes to send a photograph, Muller said.

“This bandwith is too small to really push through a lot of data,” Muller said, pointing to the laptop in his cruiser. Under the new system, transmission of an image would be as fast as emailing a picture, Muller said.

Maggie Targove, the city’s Deputy Director for Emergency Management, described the new wireless network as “a larger conduit” for sending data. Initially, the system will be just for public safety applications, Targove said. It will enable cops to send large files like mugshots and streaming video. Eventually the network could be expanded to benefit other city departments, Targove said.

Targove said that the city’s information technology department has been requesting the upgrades for years. A City Plan Commission advisory report said that the city police and fire stations now rely on DSL and T-1 internet networks, which are “overloaded, at times inoperable and expensive.”

Installing the wireless network will also save money, Targove said, by eliminating monthly fees that the city currently pays for DSL and T-1 phone services.

The new wireless infrastructure, including the new cameras, will be unobtrusive, Targove said. Cameras could be mounted on light poles or bridges, she said. “It’s not like you would see it,” she said.

Targove said that locations for the surveillance cameras have not yet been picked out. They will be placed according to where city crime stats indicate that they are most needed, Targove said. The cameras could go up in a year or a year and a half, she said.

“We do have a policy on cameras,” said Targove, anticipating that the installation of surveillance cameras can lead to concerns about invasions of privacy. Cameras can only be used in public places and cannot be used where people have “a reasonable expectation of privacy,” Targove said.

“We got a legal opinion on this in December, 2008,” Targove said. That legal opinion, drawn up by Assistant Corporation Counsel James Del Visco, states that the city can use cameras to monitor public places, and that the “risks of camera use appear to be low at this time.”

The opinion acknowledges that the installation of cameras can lead to fears of living in a “Surveillance Society.”

In an email message, Targove expressed a desire to resolve all such concerns before the cameras would be installed. “Before any significant change in the use of cameras by the City of New Haven in either degree or kind, the CAO [Chief Administrator’s Office] has committed to working with the BoA [Board of Aldermen] in order to ensure that all privacy concerns are fully vetted and properly addressed.”

Sgt. Muller said that the surveillance cameras would be an asset to solving crimes and may even help to prevent them.

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Comments

Posted by: J | August 20, 2009 4:35 PM

Big Deal. What good is seeing the crime if nothing is going to be done about the crime.

Posted by: anon | August 20, 2009 5:01 PM

Good work. Check the literature - in many other cities, cameras have been proven to be very effective at preventing and solving crimes.

Posted by: Beaver Hill Resident | August 20, 2009 6:49 PM

J,
Maybe something will be done about the crime once the officers see the crime on these cameras. It could be a big deal.

Posted by: Been Called Worse | August 20, 2009 7:39 PM

Mr. MacMillian:

Internet vs. Intranet.... Big difference.

Posted by: Been Called Worse | August 20, 2009 7:53 PM

I wouldn't really get hung up about the video cameras, either. Yes, it is a great selling point for a new wireless infrastructure, because *most* people readily understand that video requires larger pipes. But the reality of the situation is that the PD would be using the system for more productivity boosting solutions - the article mentioned mugshots (that is a definite - officers having to travel back to 1 Union for a photo is archaic). Field reporting, better access to in-house, statewide, and national records systems. If you consider that the in-vehicle data speeds are roughly as fast as dial-up modem, you begin to see the benefits here.

Hopefully once the system is built-out and fire, sanitation, parks, LCI, etc are added the city can move further towards a mobile, accountable, responsive workforce, as was always the goal.

Posted by: Fair Haven Res | August 20, 2009 10:21 PM

I would like to see video cameras in the patrol cars and recorders on the officers. It hold cops accountable for their interactions with us, protects them, and protects us.

Cams in patrol cars.
Audio recording on all officers.

Posted by: Security Cameras | August 21, 2009 3:10 AM

It is a proven fact that the installation of security cameras does in fact lead to the reduction of crime.

Also, by enabling police officers to be able to monitor these new cameras live inside their patrol cars, you increase the potential number of eyes that can be monitoring high crime rate areas.

Posted by: Gina Calder | August 21, 2009 11:53 AM

This is an exciting development that will serve to make our city safer and enable our police department (and other departments in the future) to do their jobs more effectively and efficiently. I look forward to supporting this grant proposal and working with residents and other stakeholders to address any privacy concerns.

Gina Calder

Posted by: waves | August 21, 2009 2:04 PM

Surveillance Cameras are not effective. Far from being proven crime deterrents, there is good evidence that they are ineffective. Read the Justice Department and Home office studies.

http://ipvideomarket.info/report/directory_of_cctv_effectiveness_studies

Mass surveillance is a threat to freedom and it is ineffective.

Posted by: Mister Jones | August 21, 2009 2:39 PM

Remember the mass freakout when Chapel West installed a couple of cameras in their neighorhood? Bitsie Clark was worried a cheating spouse might be caught on camera canoodling on the Green. Carl Goldfeld didn't want to see his life in pictures. Gina Calder helped lead the charge for aldermanic hearings, but now she loves this "exciting development." What's changed, other than now it'll be the cops with cameras...

Posted by: truthtopower | August 21, 2009 7:31 PM

The problem with security cameras - beside invading any privacy we might expect in a public place - is that they have been over sold as a cure all for crime.

Security Camera claims: "It is a proven fact that the installation of security cameras does in fact lead to the reduction of crime."

If that is so, show me the research. These claims are made, but the research I did showed that while there were increased arrests, many were thrown out because of poor visual quality.

The biggest point is that cameras don't PREVENT crime; they only provide some kind of record.

Don't assume that someone will be monitoring these cameras either. The monitors get bored. In some places they have use the cameras to spy on people or get close ups of couples.

There is NO substitute for the cop on the beat, although Neighborhood Watch programs that train the people to report crimes have a good record.

All this technology is funded by the federal government, but who pays when the funding stops?

Let's put our money into addressing the inequalities in society that lead to crime - like poverty. Oh, I forgot. That's too hard. We tried it once and it didn't work.

Posted by: paulienh | August 22, 2009 2:51 AM

How about we get the police officers back into the neighborhoods and not sitting in a parking lot somewhere watching new haven reality TV.. Besides once the real criminals know where the cameras are they will avoid them....

Posted by: juli | August 22, 2009 12:29 PM

truthtopower:
you mentioned "...beside invading any privacy we might expect in a public place."

what gives you the notion that we have a right to privacy while in public?

from wikipedia: "According to the United States law, examples of places where a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy are person's residence and public places which have been specifically provided by businesses or the public sector to ensure privacy, such as public restrooms, private portions of jailhouses, or a phone booth.

In general, one cannot have an expectation of privacy in public places, with the exceptions mentioned above."

Posted by: MORRIS COVE MOM | August 22, 2009 12:39 PM

Can we put cameras next to my house, at the Hyde/Fort Hale corner? 30-50 cars, taxis, trucks, construction vehicles run through the stop signs daily, and that would mean steady ticket money for the city. Also, the Hyde/Hall corner.

Posted by: Jack | August 22, 2009 11:59 PM

You nailed it Juli.

Posted by: Bruce | August 24, 2009 10:11 AM

I have no problem with cameras in public places. If someone can physically watch you do something, what is the difference? Just think of cameras as a person with a more reliable memory.

Posted by: streever | August 24, 2009 2:32 PM

I agree with Juli & Bruce--as usual :D

Posted by: robn | August 25, 2009 1:33 PM

Just in case anybody is still reading this thread...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/8219022.stm
...cameras might just be a waste of money....just sayin.

Posted by: waves056 | August 26, 2009 2:11 PM

Government video cameras are dangerous for two reasons. (1) They change the nature of policing by taking power away from citizens, and (2) they eliminate the possibility for privacy out of doors.

(1) Video surveillance radically strengthens the power of the state. Without cameras, victims or nearby people who empathize with victims are the ones who report crimes. This is an incredibly important natural safeguard on police power, because people can choose to not report violations of unjust laws. This is why black people could sometimes escape slavery, unions could organize when they were still illegal, and people today can smoke marijuana without going to prison. Video cameras destroy this natural safeguard. When the government records all activities outside of the home, the state can pick and choose which crimes it wants to go after, and it can easily prosecute innocent people who normally would have been protected by their fellow citizens.

That shift is incredibly important. Any governmental abuses will be greatly intensified when the police see everything outside homes. The power to turn in criminals should stay with victims and concerned citizens. Otherwise governmental abuses will become much harder to combat.

(2) Video surveillance makes life worse by eliminating privacy. While misinformed people love to say that we have no expectation of privacy in public, this is not correct. We always have had privacy in public. Public property includes every street, every park, every beach, and nearly every place you spend time when you are not at home. Almost everywhere, it has been possible to be by yourself outdoors without people watching. People have always been able to meet with a group of friends without policemen watching them. Also, being seen on the street by strangers and then forgotten is radically different than having all your waking actions recorded by the police. Even the privacy of the home is in jeopardy, because cameras can record who is entering which dwellings, threatening free association. With widespread video surveillance, being alone out of doors is a thing of the past and an essential part of human life disappears.

Crime Cameras On Their Way?

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