My red light camera study is going public this week, you can see TV coverage over at FOX – New Analysis Shows More Crashes at Intersections With Red Light Cameras.
A longer description can be found at The Expired Meter. I will provide the full report in a few days for everyone.
[From The Daily Northwestern - Evanston’s surveillance camera plan stirs mixed reactions]
A nice article on the discussions to install cameras in Evanston. I talked to the reporter and shared some preliminary insights in our research on the relationships between crime and cameras in Chicago. Read the article if you want the insights, otherwise by late summer, Jeremy and I will have the paper ready to share.
I am working on statistical results/reports for this study and a red light camera study that will be released in early June. Sorry for the slow down in postings.
The Chicago Police Department is pushing for the use of 200 cameras along interstate highways between Chicago and Mexico. The cameras would be fitted with ALPR technology, allowing them to identify suspicious cars. This would become the nation’s largest interstate police camera surveillance system. Specifically, the project would include “192 stationary cameras covering roughly 1,200 miles of highway across 13 states and connected to 50 mobile license plate recognition systems in vehicles.” The data that comes out of this will be immense:
Pictures of license plates and the rear end of vehicles would be time-stamped with GPS coordinates and fed into a computer that would compare them against local or national hot lists of suspect vehicles, with the information shared by participating agencies. In addition, the data would be used to analyze trends and develop patterns of travel by vehicles suspected of trafficking contraband between Chicago and the border of Mexico, according to the proposal.
While the original purpose is to identify trends in vehicles carrying drugs, the data could be used for much more. The eight page proposal can be found online at Scribd.
[From Chicago's $1.3 Million Experiment in Democracy: Participatory Budgeting in the 49th Ward]
The 49th Ward, home to over 60,000 people and the neighborhood of Rogers Park, is known for its diversity and vibrant community life. Over 80 languages are spoken within less than two square miles. Independent-minded citizens have often put intense pressure on local officials. Concerned that Moore wasn’t responding to ward needs, they nearly voted him out of office in the last election. So how does one of the nation’s most diverse neighborhoods bring opinionated residents together to make difficult budget decisions?
Moore started by setting aside his $1.3 million “menu money,” the discretionary budget that each alderman receives for capital infrastructure projects.
. . .
The Public Safety Committee, for instance, received many requests for security cameras. To learn more, they visited the neighborhood’s 24-hour camera viewing center. As community representative Marilou Kessler explained, “everyone [on the committee] came—about 15-16 people on a workday. It was astonishing cooperation.” The trip shifted the committee’s priorities: They learned that the cameras are used only occasionally, mostly by specialty police teams, and are not continuously monitored. After police explained that lighting is more effective at deterring crime, the committee replaced several camera proposals with street light proposals. (my emphasis)
It appears the CPD thinks that lighting is more effective than cameras!
In Baltimore, the camera system of 500 cameras has helped arrest 759 people last year, of which 207 were found guilty of crimes and another 214 have cases pending in the courts. However, prosecutors dropped more than 300 for reasons “ranging from legal insufficient to police officers FTA (failure to appear in court). Most of the criminal cases the cameras are used in are misdemeanor narcotics cases. There are only a few gun violence cases charged.” Of the 229 guilty findings from cameras, 228 were related to drugs and one was related to a murder.
I would suspect similar results in Chicago. I would be curious how often cameras are used in gun violence and murder cases rather than drug convictions.
[From New 911 chief wants private-sector cameras to link in :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: City Hall]
The head of the OEMC, Jose Santiago, wants to further expand Chicago’s camera network.
Santiago said there are still parts of the city “where we can’t see.” And private cameras are the quickest, cheapest way to erase those blind spots.
“Here’s a camera that cost the city nothing. We can help our first-responders. . . . We can flip a switch and we’re there already. We can say, ‘This is what you’re about to get into. You might need more resources.’ We can say, ‘Maybe you shouldn’t go in this way,’ ” Santiago told reporters after his City Council confirmation hearing.
According the article, the OEMC used private cameras to track the whereabouts of Michael Scott. It sounds like Santiago wants to use the private cameras, just like the city uses the public cameras, for watching live feeds of crimes taking place and using archival footage for investigations.
The funny thing is that the agreement between the OEMC and the owners of the private cameras is worded very differently. According to the “Memorandum of Understanding”, the OEMC only has permission for real time video in cases of “emergency management” and “disaster” as defined by the Municipal Code of Chicago, Section 2-29-010. Here are the relevant definitions:
“Disaster” means an occurrence or threat of widespread or severe damage, injury, or loss of life or property resulting from any natural or man-made cause, including but not limited to fire, flood, earthquake, wind, storm, hazardous material spills or other water contamination requiring emergency action to avert danger or damage, epidemic, air contamination, blight, extended periods of inclement weather, drought, and critical shortage of fuels and energy.
“Emergency management” means the efforts of the city to develop, plan, analyze, conduct, provide, implement and maintain programs for disaster mitigation, preparation, response and recovery.
The OEMC’s position is publicly available here:
What cameras does OEMC want to access?
OEMC is only interested in obtaining access to exterior cameras on the public way.
How often will the camera feeds be accessed?
Camera feeds will only be accessed during emergency situations and after appropriate notification has been given.
Who will have access to the camera feeds?
Highly trained Crime Surveillance Specialists will have access to the cameras, but again, only during emergency situations.
Will OEMC be recording footage from the cameras?
OEMC will NOT be recording camera feeds.
It’s pretty clear that Santiago’s views are not in accord with the MOU’s the city has entered into and the OEMC’s stated position regarding private cameras.
[From Cameras make Chicago most closely watched US city | Latest National Headlines | News fro...]
An AP story on the Chicago cameras provides a broad overview of the issues. A similar story by the WSJ ran a few months back. The story touches on a number of themes that I have discussed on this blog including the scope of the camera network, integration of private cameras, concerns about the effectiveness of cameras, and worry about the potential abuse of the camera system by government.
[From Spy cams on sweepers brushed aside -- for now :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: City Hall]
The Sun-Times reported last week that the experiment on installing license plate recognition software (ALPR) on street sweepers has stalled. The idea was to use street sweepers to identify illegally parked cars and then generate tickets based on the license plate of the cars. The idea seemed to work in early tests and the project, dubbed “Sweepercam,” earned a 2009 CIO 100 award. While seem people didn’t like this idea, I thought it was a very reasonable way of using smart cameras. The street sweepers go up and down every street, why not let them ticket illegally parked vehicles?
The city tested the cameras on six sweepers. I initially assumed the results were positive, because of the news coverage. However, the city never revealed any details on the tests of sweepercam. I can assume the benefits were not significant, since they are not going forward. The news story gives two reasons for why the program is stalled. The first is that it is to expensive to do:
“To get the desired results consistently, we need to pair our camera technology with higher-tech signage that will work in conjunction with the cameras to confirm our data so that it can stand up in a hearing,” said Streets and Sanitation spokesman Matt Smith. To post those signs citywide would require “time, effort and resources” the city doesn’t have, Smith said.
The other reason comes from the contractor:
John Kosiba, chief operating officer for Span Tech, said the cameras are being removed until the Legislature decides the future of video surveillance for moving violations.
I really don’t understand the reason given by the city. What is higher-tech signage? The only thing I can figure out, is that the city needs a way to prove a car was at a given location. Please let me know if you understand the city’s position.
[From Ald. Leslie Hairston Wants To Revive Gunshot-Location Technology In Chicago - cbs2chicago.com ]
Fifth Ward Ald. Leslie Hairston wants Chicago to reintroduce the Shotspotter gunshot location technology. After all, Shotspotter’s web site says it can reduce crime. So why isn’t the CPD using it? Don’t they care?
The CPD did adopt Shotspotter and found mixed results in Chicago. Specifically:
The city conducted three separate tests of gunshot sensors between 2003 and 2007 in the West Side’s Harrison Police District. Only on one occasion did the detection system send a warning prior to a person calling 911 to report the shooting. As a result, the city felt the gunshot detection systems were too expensive at a cost of $200,000 a square mile.
The city is going forward with installing the technology in the Loop. However, Shotspotter is an expensive technology and the CPD decided it wasn’t the best use of their scare resources. The city of Chicago is approximately 227 square miles, so to cover the entire city would cost close to $50 million.
The Shotspotter technology locates gunshots. In a dense city, 911 calls often serve the same function. Gunshot location is a useful piece of information for police officers, but it is not a silver bullet. It cannot by itself reduce crime. If the system is reliable and works well with officers, it could lead to less shootings (but not necessarily less crime). The independent studies I have seen show the results are quite mixed.
In Chicago, there has been a rash of shootings in Chicago were no regard for the police or cameras. Shotspotter is now the silver bullet. I am concerned that Shotspotter is seen as the answer because people are scared. It doesn’t make sense to spend money on technology that makes us feel better, but is ineffective. The city can address this by making public its tests of Shotspotter. I would like more details about the tests, for example: How many gunshots were there during the tests? How accurate was the system?
[From Special Segment: Blue Light Watchers - 3/31/10 - Chicago News - abc7chicago.com]
A few more tidbits about the Urban Institute study on cameras in Chicago have come out, here is an older post on the study. The core part of this findings are:
Dr. Nancy LaVigne led the study which focused on two neighborhoods – Humboldt Park and West Garfield Park. Each has a fairly high concentration of cameras. In Humboldt, the conclusion is that the cameras have had a real impact. Drug, robbery, weapons offenses, and overall crime dropped significantly after cameras arrived. The same, however, is not true in West Garfield where there was no significant change pre and post camera.
So why would they have an impact in one neighborhood and not in another? There are a number of possible explanations, but the short answer is researchers don’t know.
What they can say, however, is that if you combine the numbers from the two neighborhoods, the cameras still have a significant impact on crime.
The presentation of this study points out a potential big hole in the study. There was another factor contributing to the crime reduction in Humboldt Park, other than the cameras. The police officers over at Second City Cop have pointed this out. The Urban Institute has a rich history of doing good work, so I am going to hold off commenting until I see the final report (which is due out this summer).
I should point out that the Urban Institute had the cooperation of the CPD in gaining access to three years of data. I have been pushing the CPD for reports and data on the effectiveness of the cameras for years and have received little cooperation.
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