Carrie Porter from The Wall Street Journal is reporting how Peoria Illinois deals with rowdy citizens and drug dealers:  shame them with a armored vehicle loaded with cameras.

Police here call it the Armadillo. They say it has restored quiet to some formerly rowdy streets. Neighbors' calls for help have dropped sharply. About half of the truck's targets have fled the neighborhood.

"The truck is meant to be obnoxious and to cause shame," says Peoria Police Chief Steven Settingsgaard.

The Armadillo has helped alleviate problems like drug dealing that can make neighborhoods unlivable.
That weekend, the truck pulled up to the offending neighbor's house. A police officer knocked on the door and told the residents a nuisance report had been filed. Within 24 hours, the Smiths say, the house was quiet. The occupants moved out soon thereafter.

"The difference was like night and day," Mrs. Smith says. The landlord, Phil Schertz, credits the Armadillo.

"The ugliness of the Armadillo is what makes it unique," says Jim Pasco, executive director of the National Fraternal Order of Police. "A police car is not a particular stigma, but if people see that thing in front of your house, they know something bad is going on in there."

Peoria police acknowledge that the truck sometimes just shifts crime from one area to another. But it can disrupt illegal activities temporarily. Citizens appear to like the idea, and police say they have a four-week waiting list of requests for the Armadillo.

In the summer of 2006, police were brainstorming ways to rattle a suspected drug dealer. They had exhausted traditional strategies, including undercover operations, and were left empty-handed and frustrated. They decided to park a retired police car in front of the suspect's house.

About 24 hours after the car had been put in place, all its windows had been smashed, the tires were flat and the body was dented.

"It was embarrassing to tow a police car," Chief Settingsgaard says. "But I saw it as a success because it was proof how much [the dealer] really disliked the police car's presence."

The dealer left the neighborhood soon after the incident; he was later arrested and convicted on a gun charge.

A Peoria tire company installed foam-filled tires that can't go flat. Decals that say "PEORIA POLICE Nuisance Property Surveillance Vehicle" were pasted on all four sides of the white truck.

There were some bumps along the road. When Officer Elizabeth Hermacinski, 39, the force's nuisance-abatement officer and Armadillo driver, took the behemoth out for its first deployment in July 2008, the targeted troublemakers seemed to have gotten wind of the plan. In any case, they had parked cars in every available spot in front of the house.

So Ms. Hermacinski parked across the street, close enough to get the message across. "It's psychological warfare," she says.

The Armadillo is the opposite of an undercover operation. Its goal isn't making arrests, but alerting suspects that police are on to them, police say. The surveillance footage is rarely reviewed by the police and is saved for just a short time before it is erased. Still, the unit can have a significant impact.

The Peoria Police have performed value-camera-engineering at it's finest.  The whole point of this truck is to "fix" problem situations, and it is working like a charm.  Operation "embarrasment truck" is a pretty slick idea and I think there is a good future in this tactic as long as communities remain aware of the displacement issue.

Simon Watt said: “I recently discovered that CCTV cameras had been installed in the toilets. I went into the school to discuss the matter with them, as I was not happy with such a situation.

“Though the cameras are pointed at the sink areas within the toilets and the cameras were installed in response to some vandalism, I have not been pacified and still do not agree with such a Big Brother approach.

“I wonder how many other parents are not aware of this situation and would they feel the same way once they found out? I wonder about the effect on society when this type of monitoring becomes acceptable.”

Charles Farrier, a spokesman for national pressure group No CCTV, which campaigns against surveillance in the UK, also criticised the use of CCTV in schools.

He said: “It's outrageous and unacceptable to put CCTV in toilets, particularly children's toilets. CCTV doesn't stop problems. It is treated as a 'silver bullet' but it won't – at best it films the problem but you can't tell what's going on with the footage.

“It's just treating CCTV as if it is this magic bullet which its not. The industry knows it's not, the police know its not, it's just the people who put it in place think it will solve every problem there is.”

Deputy headteacher Brian Conway said: “We have had a serious recurring vandalism problem in one of our cloakrooms which was causing over £3,500 of damage and flooding each time it has happened.

“After taking advice from other schools and Norfolk County Council we decided to install CCTV to monitor the sinks and taps in this one particular cloakroom.

“The cameras have been installed in accordance with local and national guidance and I stress that they only monitor the sink areas where the vandalism had been occurring – they cannot be moved to face into cubicles or urinals. I am pleased to be able to say that thanks to the CCTV the vandalism has now stopped.

While I agree that setting up a camera in any bathroom, let alone a childrens bathroom sounds like a bad idea, the cameras have proven to be effective and outcome of their implementation (less vandalism) has been a success.  I do believe cameras can be effective in the reduction of vandalism when the proper technologies and practices are applied in the correct context.  Since the surveillance camera was pointed on a "common area" and not the "private area" of the bathroom, I'm not going to categorize this as a public policy failure, but rather a public surveillance success story.

The UK has an unknown amount of CCTV cameras which could range from 3 million up to perhaps 4.2 million cameras. It has been called the most watched nation by the BBC. UK Detective Mick Neville went so far as to call the police department's CCTV initiatives an utter fiasco. While I somewhat agree with Mick, now is the time to take a step back, collect data on camera effectiveness and implement these systems in the proper contexts going forward.

Dennis Wyatt from the Manteca Bulletin reports:

There was a time when parents were reluctant to allow their kids to go to the Manteca skate park.

Set off a ways from Center Street along the Tidewater Bikeway, there were constant problems ranging from fighting and bullying to the flashing of weapons.

Virtually all of those problems disappeared when Manteca Police installed two security cameras at the skate park that are monitored at the dispatch center.

Manteca leaders are hoping 24/7 security cameras will do the same thing for Southside Park in the neighborhood immediately south of downtown. While gang problems have been reduced, parents aren’t comfortable sending their children to play in the park even though there was $150,000 in playground improvements made several years ago.

The City Council Tuesday will take the next step in getting security cameras installed at both Southside Park and Library Park when they transfer $88,852 in federal Community Development Block Grants funds from the senior center parking lot project to the security camera effort. The parking lot ended up costing less than the $212,743 originally expected
The cameras would be placed high enough and with adequate protection to allow dispatchers to monitor the park unimpeded from police headquarters.

The cameras are expected to help alert police of trouble as well as enhancing the prosecution of individuals who are arrested while being monitored via the cameras.
Library Park in downtown was picked for the second location to have cameras installed due to continuing issues with alcoholic consumption, individuals ‘camping’ in and around the park and library.”

A gang officer could go into dispatch and scan all the parks in 10 minutes that would take him an hour or so to drive around town to check.
The surveillance cameras in parks is an outgrowth of the successful use of three remote cameras to help police the Manteca skate park that is difficult to keep tabs on due to its remote location along the Tidewater Bikeway and away from Center Street.

Problems at the skate park that ran the gamut from weapons being displayed, flashing, graffiti and general bullying have been reduced to a small fraction of what they were prior to the cameras being put in place. The city feeds one image directly to the City of Manteca website so the general public can see what’s going on at the skate park. That image, along with those from two other cameras that can be remotely panned and to zoom in is monitored at the dispatch center.

The end result is quicker detection of problems and the ability to give officers en route detailed and up to date information as viewed by the dispatcher.

The equipment — usually placed high on telephone poles or light standards with clear shots of the area being watched — is durable enough to withstand weather and abuse.

The cameras would be a tool to augment the effectiveness of the city’s police officers. They would also address growing concerns that parks are becoming more susceptible to criminal activity unless police step up patrols.

Targeted patrols will still be done but police have pointed out such a system would effectively allow the department to not only check parks more frequently for trouble but direct responding officers to the troublemakers.

It is also keeping with the police department’s long-held contention that the more eyes and ears helping them do their job through Neighborhood Watch Groups and alert individual citizens, the more effective they can be fighting crime.

In this case, they would be eyes that never sleep. Cameras would be monitored 24/7 at the dispatch center.

This article is another great example that CCTV cameras and related technologies have the potential to work well in public parks. Public officials should pay attention to this trend and implement such systems where appropriate.

Through the gunshot detection system, East Orange Police were able to swarm the shooting scene within minutes. Sanders was spotted only blocks away fleeing from the area. After obtaining a search warrant, detectives recovered two handguns at the defendant's East Orange home.

In March, 2009 New Jersey Police  heralded their gunshot detection systems making claims as, "Once criminal elements know that you can't just shoot guns, it's going to be a deterrent for guys carrying guns." However, it didn't take too long before the public figured out the truth – these systems appear to be pushing murder into the next town, not deterring crime as intended.

According to NJ.com

To the north in East Orange, overall crime dropped 71 percent from 2003 to 2008. And to the northeast in Newark, murders fell more than 37 percent in the past three years.  That trend hasn't spread to Irvington. Last year there were 25 homicides, up slightly from 2007. On top of that, 45 people were wounded by gunfire. There have been five murders so far this year.

Officials say some criminals are finding a new place to conduct business in Irvington.  "Crime really has no borders," said Anthony Ambrose, the county's chief of investigators. "Drug dealers don't care. If Newark is coming down on them, and Orange is coming down on them, they're going to go to a place with less police and less strategies."  As a stopgap measure, the State Police began patrolling Irvington in mid-2003, a year when there were a record 30 homicides.

The aim is to turn the tables in Irvington, where crime has risen in part because aggressive policing in nearby Newark and East Orange drove gangs and drug dealers out of those cities and into the township of nearly 60,000.

It's great to hear that this gunshot detection system is securing arrests.  However, securing arrests and potentially convictions is a radically different result than what the public officials thought it would do – deter gunshot murders.  The arrest secured also followed a very similar pattern to the vandalism problem in the Baltimore parks. The parks used combined technologies to capture an event, an alert was sent, and an officer intervenes.  Event-alert-intervene is also what made the arrest happen in East Orange.

Other communities should pay attention to this story so that they do not become a potentential victim of murder displacement.  If your town or neighboring towns have a high murder rate and you are going to install gunshot detectors, make sure they get installed in all the neighboring towns at the same time to level the playing field.

Politicians should also work with academic institutions before making claims that these systems are effective.  Cities should also modify their crime reporting standards to capture new data which will report on the overall private and public surveillance initiative effectiveness.

A SECURITY camera installed at a Crewkerne car park has had a dramatic impact on crime. Its arrival came following a number of incidents over the past year at the car park in which the vehicles had been either damaged or broken into. And Sgt Lloyd said: “There haven’t been any offences recorded since the camera was installed in the car park.”

There are many different kinds of vehicle crime which include:  vandalism, criminal mischief, smash and grab, and vehicle thefts.  It still remains unclear just how effective a CCTV cameras are on each category of vehicle crime.  From the small amount of research out there , the answer is currently not clear.  It may just be "all of the above".

From Biting Back II: REDUCING REPEAT VICTIMISATION IN HUDDERSFIELD : Routine activity theory states that three elements have to be present for a crime to take place:

To prevent crime, you therefore need to take action to affect at least one of those conditions.

So it appears in public or private parking lots, a CCTV camera is quickly becoming a capable guardian.

According to Weisel, Smith, Garson, Pavlichev & Wartell : Three primary types of motor vehicle theft are based upon the differing motivations of offenders. These include: profit motivated theft in which stolen motor vehicles are exported, or disassembled for spare parts, and fraud; theft for transportation for short-term or prolonged use, which may be used to commit another crime; and recreational theft, often know as joyriding and typically involving youths.

If in fact these cameras are stopping vehicle thefts, there can also be a cascading effect which has the opportunity to further reduce "another crime" that the vehicle could have been used to commit.

Last week, a Wal-Mart camera captured an attempted murderers license plate in a parking lot which directed the police to the home of the suspects.  A few weeks ago, FCFA featured an article about a park in Baltimore which is experiencing less vandalism which also included technology to monitor the parking lot for illegally parked cars.

So it appears that cameras in parking lots with the correct positioning, image quality, and light levels have the potential to:

• Deter vehicle crime
• Increase apprehensions; which can
• Increase convictions

In the United Kingdom, police have tested out the equipment for two years.

Since implementing the new cameras, complaints decreased 14 per cent and guilty pleas rose 22 per cent, said Sgt. Grant Hamilton, spokesperson for Victoria police.

The digital recordings also saves officers time in preparing court documents, he added.

All of the equipment is on loan from the manufacturer until the pilot project ends Aug. 31.

 

The highlighter-sized camera attaches to a bike helmet or to glasses. It is attached to a wallet-sized recorder that fits in a breast pocket.

 

It is at the officers discretion to turn the camera on and off, but video footage cannot be deleted on site.

 

During the eight-week trial period, Victoria police will also test three video surveillance cameras in their cars.

Guilty pleas rose 22%. That's a pretty good number and is hard to refute the hard data here. However, what's also interesting is the fact Victoria PD claims complaints to police decreased 14% when the equipment was tested.  Are they claiming these cameras reduced complaint calls by 14%?

I believe these cameras to have the potential to secure convictions and have more guilty pleas. This equipment can also have a cascading effect to the court system. When a citizen pleads guilty, less legal resources can be utilized and that speeds up the process.

Update 7/12: Below is a video clip of the Victoria police describing the system in detail.

There is no evidence that cameras deter violent crime, however, there is some evidence surfacing that CCTV combined with video analytics, motion detection, and email alerts is actually stopping vandalism in public parks.

According to the Baltimore Sun, 5 parks will be fitted with this equipment based on the success of a pilot program from Reistertown park.

The equipment senses motion and automatically sends e-mail alerts to the closest police station. It will also e-mail information on cars illegally parked after sunset.  "This technology is very smart," Barrett said. "It can detect motion and follow it. It can distinguish between a human being and a deer, even down to distinguishing the color of clothing."

This equipment is also operationally cheap because it doesn't require 24 hour monitoring.

There has been some evidence noted by Welsh and Farrington that noted parking lot crime reduction, "Results of this review indicate that CCTV has a modest but significant desirable effect on crime, is most effective in reducing crime in car parks, is most effective when targeted at vehicle crimes"

Greenberg and Roush also found less "minor crimes" like vandalism in their research, "Though not definitive, our results suggest that CCTV may be moderately effective in preventing minor crimes or in diverting them to distant areas."

While the initial reports from Baltimore sound promising, the City should launch a formal review of the systems to test if vandalism or graffitti are being displaced outside of the parks and possibly into private property.