Bill Matt

Today the Mayor held a press conference announcing a six point plan to increase police presence in the city in an effort to reduce crime. This is most certainly due to the recent rash of homicides in Lansing. Last year we had a total of 6 in the city. This year we are at 8 and counting. For the first half of last year we had 2, an increase of 300% over the first half of this year. Residents are demanding action, and the Mayor has responded.

The plan includes 10 video surveilance cameras at a price tag of $250,000.00, and one additional officer to work with neighborhood watch groups estimated at $100,000.00. The cameras will feature recording devices with video saved for 2 weeks, which will certainly help to investigate crimes after the fact. The main goal however is to deter crime in the ten hottest spots in the city. I would expect that at least one, maybe two, will be deployed in the 3rd ward.

This afternoon, City Council had the chance to question Chief of Staff Jerry Ambrose, and Police Chief Mark Alley. There were reassurances that training would be extensive and sensitive areas, such as your windows, would be blocked out, protecting your privacy.

Similar efforts are taking place all over the country:

Baltimore (LINK)

Other surveillance-camera systems in Baltimore have reportedly been successful crime-reduction tools in the areas in which they have been employed. The Downtown Partnership, for example, has had surveillance systems in place since 1996 in various places in the city center; the nonprofit downtown booster organization has 80 cameras nestled into well-marked areas.

And the ACLU has it's concerns:

But with the cameras come privacy concerns, and groups including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Privacy Information Center say that surveillance cameras fail to truly reduce crime in urban areas, are subject to abuse by government and law-enforcement officials (in a position paper on video-surveillance, the ACLU cites a case in which a Washington, D.C., police officer used the cameras to gather information on patrons of a local gay club), and have a “chilling effect” on public life.

And in Philadelphia (LINK):

PHILADELPHIA -- A year after the first city-owned police surveillance cameras came online at 12 crime hot spots, the results are inconclusive but encouraging, officials said.

Initial statistics compiled by the city suggest the cameras are reducing crime at key intersections while generating arrests for crimes that previously went undetected, according to a report Sunday in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

An additional 500 cameras are slated to be installed during the next two years, officials said.

So Lansing is far from the first to try this method of crime fighting. Several people spoke out today to voice concerns over privacy issues. One even called it a form of slavery. Please.

From my personal experience, I have had two Neighborhood Associations request cameras to help deter crime in their neighborhoods. Clearly there is a divide between people that want cameras and people that don't want cameras. I suggested to the administration that rather than look strictly at hard data and decide where to put cameras, they work with neighborhoods that want cameras initially, so as to lessen the soon to be heard public outcry.

I am a big fan of public safety. I think we should be upgrading our police technology to get the police the best tools available to get their jobs done. That includes cameras. In fact, part of the NAN program I am working on would eventually incorporate the technology infrastructure to support wireless cameras in neighborhoods. I also think that privacy issues must be strictly adhered to, and that no one's civil rights are infringed upon. Walking and talking in public, while being video taped, doesn't in my mind take away civil rights.

The Mayor's plan also calls for youth activities, family building, and strengthening neighborhood watches and associations. It is a wide ranging and ambitious plan, with cameras just a small part of the overall strategy. It will certainly get most of the press and scrutiny over the next few weeks. Council will have to approve the funding for these programs, so we will be looking for answers from the administration to your most pressing questions. Please let us know.

Labels: Bill Matt, cameras, lansing, lansing city council, police