In retrospect: Challenges of a private entity monitoring public spaces
Police call them a 'resource,' but the public isn't so sure
By Leischen Stelter
LANCASTER, Pa.—In the 1980s and 1990s, the city of Lancaster saw a significant jump in crime. “We experienced the big city to small city criminal migration trend and that’s what we continue to battle today,” said Joe Morales, executive director of the Lancaster Community Safety Coalition, during a panel session at the Video Monitoring Solutions Network conference on May 18.
In order to combat this trend and assist law enforcement with their crime prevention strategies, the Lancaster Community Safety Coalition was established in 2002. As an independent non-profit organization, the Coalition installed video cameras in the city to monitor public spaces. The funding for the project came from private and public donations.
The wrinkle? Cameras are monitored by private citizens, not law enforcement officers.
There was very little community objection when the first camera was installed in 2002, but then the coalition increased the number of cameras to 164 between 2007-2009, and an article published by the Los Angeles Times in June 2009 created a major public stir. The Times article, which dubbed Lancaster the “nation's most closely watched small city,” focused on the fact that cameras are monitored by a private nonprofit group and not law enforcement.
After the article was published, there was a significant public outcry about the surveillance system. “People were upset about their privacy being invaded,” said Mayor Rick Gray, during a speech at VMSN. “My reaction was that there is no difference between a police officer sitting at an intersection and a camera being there.” However, the city held several informational sessions to educate the public about the use and location of the cameras.
Looking back, Morales recognizes that they didn’t do a good enough job of reaching out to the public. When the project first started, Morales said they did inform the public about the camera system and addressed some of the concerns involving civil liberties and data collection, “but then we let it slide,” he said. “We thought: ‘That’s done,’ and let’s move on to building the system and that’s where we ran into trouble. We didn’t keep in touch with our stakeholders.”
Morales said because the organization is independent and not associated with any government or police agency, they have to be particularly careful about how they conduct business and the policies they put in place. “The absence of state and federal regulations means that we work hard to make sure we’re dotting our ‘i’s and crossing our ‘t’s,” he said. Their civilian employees undergo stringent background checks and training programs.
Because of privacy concerns, the coalition does not deploy audio or facial recognition capabilities. They also use masking technology to block the viewing of private residences. And, while the coalition has established relationships with the police department, their interaction is restricted. “The rule of thumb is that the police never operate our equipment and they understand they must request video from us and we’re under no legal obligation to provide it,” he said.
But this partnership with police has been critical to improving crime rates in this small city of 55,000, said Sergeant Mike Winters with Lancaster City Police. “From an investigator perspective, one of the first questions we ask during a major event is: Where is the closest camera?” he said. “The Coalition is one of the first groups we contact to see if they can be a resource to us.”
However, the coalition is not just about public video surveillance, it’s largely about involving the community in enhancing public safety and awareness. “Cameras are sort of supplementary to community mobilization,” said Morales. “It’s more about how we can get neighbors to know their neighbors and take an interest in their own block or street.”
A significant part of that strategy is the concept of crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) and focusing on natural surveillance, he said. The goal is to get as many people as possible to watch an area. It could be as simple as trimming hedges and making sure tree canopies are high enough to allow good sight lines to public streets.
One of the real challenges has been trying to quantify how effective the program has been, said Sgt. Winters. “It’s difficult to measure crime prevented. There’s no way to gauge how many crimes didn’t happen and realistically some crimes are going to happen whether or not someone’s watching. But other crimes—someone might think twice,” he said.
Courtesy of Security Director News
May 24, 2010 |
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