District police cameras have had no impact on reducing crime in the city, partly because of restrictive policies that other law enforcent agency departments aren’t forced to deal with, according to the author of a new study. A three-year review by the Urban Institute examined the use of public surveillance cameras in D.C., Baltimore and Chicago, and found them to be a cost-effective means of reducing crime — except in Washington.
“We saw no impact of the cameras on crime in D.C.,” said the study’s lead author Nancy La Vigne.
Metropolitan Police Department is much less proactive in its use of the cameras than in the other two cities, La Vigne said.
The District has about 80 police surveillance cameras compared to more than 500 in Baltimore and 2,000 in Chicago.
The monitors in Chicago and Baltimore are manned around-the-clock. District police appears to use it primarily as a tool to record evidence for later use in investigations.
While Chicago’s cameras are linked together by a wireless network that allows any officer to watch real-time feeds and take control of the camera from their computer, District guidelines require that the cameras be monitored from a single control center with a police officer of the rank of lieutenant or higher in the room at all times.
If the lieutenant leaves the room, La Vigne said, the officer working the monitors is supposed to turn away.
The protocol was one of many developed by the D.C. Council to alleviate privacy concerns and worries of abuse.
“The rules are too restrictive and hinder the technology from having it’s fullest impact,” La Vigne said.
In Chicago, police will use the monitors to focus on the hottest crime locations on any given day.
Cameras are grouped together so that police can watch as a person walks from one camera angle to another, La Vigne said.
In Baltimore, the bulk of the police department’s 500-plus camera system was installed downtown and in high-crime neighborhood. Total crime in those areas dropped by 25 percent, the report said.
Assistant D.C. Police Chief Pete Newsham said the study does not consider the impact on the victims of violent crimes and their families whose cases have been solved with the aide of the cameras.
Earlier this year, a video camera caught a deadly exchange of gunfire between rival gangs near the Caribbean Festival.
In 2008, Newsham said, a camera at 16th and E Street NE was used to identify the young suspect who used a high-profiled rifle used in the shooting of a 7-year-old girl.
“We really consider these cameras valuable,” Newsham said.
