Surveillance in Chicago: POD Program
[From Chicago Police Department POD Program]
The Chicago Police Department has put together a brochure on video surveillance in Chicago through the PODs (Police Observation Devices). Her is the PDF link. It offers some good background information, including details of the various generations of cameras that have been used. It also offers the well known statistics on the cameras.
In areas with the PODs, narcotic-related calls declined by 76%, serious index crimes declined by 17%, while non-index, quality-of-life crimes declined by 46%. This makes sense, since the cameras were being used a deterrent. Activity would be seen on the cameras and then officers would respond. But the rational response of a criminal is then to move beyond the scope of the camera. This is what happened. Narcotic-related arrests declined 3.3% on beats where PODs were located, but increased 151.7% on the beats immediately surrounding the POD beats. (I would also like to know if other crimes declined or increased on the beats surrounding the POD beats.) While the CPD touts this as a success, its a clear example of displacement, and undermines the usefulness of cameras to reduce crime.
I have been working hard to get more data on the effectiveness of the cameras in Chicago. Recent data on camera locations and crime activity is available from the CPD at their ClearMap site. I can’t figure out how to extract the data from the web site, it would be nice to have a google maps overlay with all the pods.
Hi Rajiv,
One thing that struck me was that I saw no mention of video analytics in the report. It seemed they were using traditional video surveillance techniques.
I know people talk about IBM and video analytics in Chicago but I have not yet heard any success stories on it. Have you?
I believe the contract with IBM just started last fall. The first part of that was focused on deploying fiber for cameras. The second part, which probably started this spring is using IBM’s new analytic software. So hopefully, we will hear more about the use of analytics. But for now, Chicago has kept the testing and implementation of any smart camera system under wraps.