NJ city leading way in crime-fighting technology
[From The Associated Press: NJ city leading way in crime-fighting technology]
East Orange, NJ is a city with high crime that has decided to fight crime with new leadership and technology. The question is how much credit is due to the technology. The AP article highlights some of the technologies East Orange is using:
- Database for crime data instead of using paper reports
- Wireless computer system for all patrol cars
- Video surveillance cameras in high-crime areas
- Virtual community patrol system for residents to report crimes via text message
- Grid showing patrol cars’ locations
- Gunshot detection system that tracks the source of shootings.
The article next mentions the next generation smart camera technologies that East Orange is adopting:
The sensors, which work in concert with surveillance cameras, are designed to spot potential crimes by recognizing specific behavior: Someone raising fist at another person, for example, or a car slowing down as it nears a man walking on a deserted street late at night. Each new crime recorded is programmed into the database.
“They know what is normal behavior,” said Tarik Hammadou, whose Australian company, Digisensory Technologies, makes the sensors. “And when there is abnormal behavior like an assault, we annotate it and say to the sensor, ‘This is an assault,’ so the sensor will always remember the pattern.”
When the sensor raises an alert, an officer sitting in the department’s nerve center can zoom in on images to see if a crime is in progress. A computer program sends the information to a laptop in the patrol car nearest to the scene. The whole process takes seconds
As the article notes, the effectiveness of these technologies is questionable.
Recent Comments