Candid Cameras

In fighting crime in the city, groups see system of connected cameras as one part of the battle.

By Gil Smart
Associate Editor
Lancaster Sunday News
11/23/03

Had Charles Ernest D'Orazio known he was on candid camera, he might have smiled.

But D'Orazio apparently didn't know that digital video cameras watched the hallways and stairwells of Farnum Street East when he beat, strangled and stabbed a man in June 2002, nearly killing him. The cameras caught D'Orazio shortly after the assault - and the pictures, subsequently published in local newspapers, helped police capture him and helped prosecutors convict him. Two months ago he was sentenced to 20 to 40 years in prison.

The closed-circuit TV camera that caught D'Orazio had just been installed days before the assault, said Bob Schellhamer, executive director of the Lancaster City Housing Authority. "(The cameras) paid dividends almost immediately."

Schellhamer also chairs the executive committee of the Lancaster Community Safety Coalition, which thinks that similar cameras installed on city streets might pay similar dividends, catching criminals in the act and preventing some crimes from happening in the first place.

To be sure, no one involved with the coalition - formed in the wake of the Lancaster Crime Commission report - sees cameras as a panacea. Though as many as 20 cameras in public places may be installed by the end of next year - one is in place, with a few more to be installed as soon as the end of this week - the goal is not merely to blanket the city with all-seeing eyes in the sky.

Overall effort

It is, rather, to use cameras as part of the overall effort to reduce crime in Lancaster, to work in conjunction with community groups and the idea of "safety by design," which would add lighting, trim hedges and implement other measures to increase "natural surveillance" in a neighborhood.

But "unnatural" surveillance in the form of pan-tilt-zoom cameras that can see in the dark and clearly capture the image of a license plate from up to two blocks away will be an integral part of the process. Other cities are using these cameras and say they have helped slash crime.

And while civil libertarians sometimes raise meek protests, the community safety coalition is going out of its way to address those concerns before they even arise.

The goal is not to spy on people. Rather, said Schellhamer, it's to instill "a perception of safety" in law abiding citizens.

"And we want the bad guys to know we're looking at them."

The sole "public" camera deployed in the city is at East King and North Lime streets. Jack Howell of the Lancaster Alliance said the camera was placed there in 2002 as an "experiment" in the wake of the Lancaster Crime Commission report, which advocated the installation of sidewalk security cameras.

The experiment, Howell said, has been a success.

Drug arrests

Images captured by the Bosch camera already have led to six drug arrests, one arrest for hit-and-run and have aided in a fire investigation, said Dale Witmer, interim executive director of the community safety coalition.

Unsurprisingly, the police like the idea of cameras, though Capt. Don Palmer of the Lancaster Bureau of Police stresses that the cameras will be watching the cops, too.

"If an incident is going on in the scope of the camera, it's going to record whether the police are conducting themselves properly," Palmer said. That's by design.

For the community safety coalition specifically does not want the cameras to be seen as some police-led intrusion into citizens' privacy. The police, in fact, will not be responsible for monitoring the cameras; that job will be handled by the coalition itself. A monitoring center will be set up at the coalition's offices in the UGI building at 262 Conestoga St. The cameras will be capable of recording 24 hours a day, seven days a week, though some of that ultimately may be motion-activated.

Images would be stored digitally. Police will have access to the system in an emergency situation - such as a hostage crisis - where they will be able to flip a switch in the police station and watch. And, of course, they will have access to images after they have been recorded.

The cameras will not record any audio, and signs will be installed advising citizens that they are being filmed. In addition, said Howell, except where images might be subpoenaed, "they are not going to be used for civil matters," he said. "People are not going to have to worry about being caught on film cheating on their wives."

And residents will be allowed to view the images, though they'll likely have to make an appointment first.

"Eyes" in Wilmington

These kinds of cameras are in use throughout the world. Wilmington, Del., is held up as a sort of model, and members of the coalition recently visited the Wilmington operation run by a group called "Downtown Visions/ which can view 65 of the 69 blocks in the downtown area via 25 cameras.

"We patrol the street with joysticks/ Martin P. Hageman, Downtown Vision's executive director, told the Wilmington News-Journal last year. "The criminals cannot outrun the cameras."

The coalition has studied the results of similar systems at the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University in Philadelphia, as well as Johannesburg, South Africa. In each case, coalition members have liked what they've seen, though they worry that some here may raise privacy concerns.

However, it would seem the opposite reaction is equally as likely: Fieople in the city are almost certain to want the cameras on their block. And therein lies a bit of a problem.

The infrastructure to place cameras throughout vast swaths of the city already exists. The cameras will in fact "piggy-back" on fiber-optic lines that were recently installed for the city's traffic-control system. Federal funding made it possible to add additional strands of the cable that make it possible to place the cameras along the lines.

Other measures

But the plan is not to slap cameras on every corner. Coalition members say that cannot be the plan, for the cameras will not do as much to deter crime as a coordinated approach that include the cameras - but also simpler measures such as installing new lights, trimming trees and getting citizens involved.

"It's a three-pronged approach," said Schell hamer, which coalition members have termed "lights, camera, action." "We're not just bent on getting cameras out on the street."

There's another reason for that: The cameras are expensive, costing a few thousand dollars apiece. The coalition may get a bit of a deal on the cameras from Bosch Security Systems, which has offices in Greenfield Industrial Park. Ultimately, the coalition hopes to pay for cameras through a combination of federal or state grant money, plus local contributions.

As many as 20 of the cameras could be deployed by the end of next year; shortly after Thanksgiving, two cameras will be installed on the exterior of the community safety coalition's office in the UGI building.

City housing director Schellhamer said he'd like to install cameras on the front of the authority's Church Street Towers and Farnum Street East facilities which not only would enhance security at those locations, but monitor the head of the South Duke Street corridor entirely.

Private cameras

Ultimately, said Witmer, the coalition hopes that private security cameras that now watch parking lots or the exterior of private businesses throughout the city might ultimately be hooked up the citywide camera network.

For while there may be some trepidation over the idea that the coalition, like Big Brother, will be watching city streets, Witmer points out that cameras are becoming ubiquitous in private spaces; most people have their photo snapped dozens of times a day, all in the name of making those private spaces more secure, making them feel more secure.

Indeed, officials in Wilmington say they believe cameras have prevented as much crime as they have caught on tape. The images provide hard-to-refute evidence and can shorten trials, thereby saving money.

And the cameras can also be invaluable in fire investigations, said Witmer.

Which, coalition members say, is not to downplay the privacy concerns of citizens.

And even coalition members themselves stress that cameras are not the solution to crime.

"But," said Schellhamer, "they can be part of the solution."

"The camera footage has led defendants
to plead guilty and persuaded reluctant witnesses to step forward."

District Attorney Craig Stedman

Read what other Lancaster community leaders are saying about the LCSC >>