Fighting Crime From Above?

WKSL out of Salt Lake City Utah is shedding more insight into what happens when surveillance cameras are installed in high crime public parks.  According to the first article, four cameras were installed in Pioneer Park to battle the drug dealing problem.  The police were looking to achieve three objectives:

• Deter crime
• Document crime
• Allow officers to monitor the park

While these are realistic goals, the question now being asked is exactly which type of crime are they trying to deter?   A few other cities have claimed success reducing vandalism and grafitti in public parks, but mention nothing of drug deals.

The second article goes on to state:

The cameras went up last February, along with signs advertising that the area was under 24-hour surveillance. Since then, police say calls for assistance at the park have been cut in half.

In 2007, officers were called out 971 times. So far this year, they've been called just 498 times. Data from 2008 was excluded because of park construction.

"What we've really seen it drop in is drug dealing," Snyder said, adding that since February officers have only made a couple of drug arrests.

But police admit the dealing has been displaced, not stopped.

"It may push into other areas, but it has inconvenienced the drug dealers. If nothing else, they're losing some of their customers," Snyder said.

The displacement of dealers is not a secret to Ron Martensen, who owns "Mechanized", a shop near 200 South and 550 West. He has seen an increased police presence, but he's also seen a lot of problems.

"I think that's the whole thing with–the camera is a great indicator it's just going to move somewhere else," Martensen said. "We'd have people standing directly in front of our door. The door opened outward, so you couldn't open the door without hitting them."

I don't know if the Salt Lake City police can really categorize this as a success.  Yes, drug deals are down in the park but they have simply moved outside of the location of the cameras.  While the park is now "safer" for children, the streets are not.   I'm going to chalk this one up as another politician claiming success because the verdict is not quite out yet.