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July 18, 2006
Baltimore Experience
From Philadelphia Daily News:
A story that discusses Philadelphia's move towards widespread video surveillance. The best part of the article discusses the Baltimore surveillance experience. Couple of key points:
- Drug-forfeiture money and contributions from the Department of Homeland Security paid for Baltimore's $10-million camera program, officials said. But taxpayers will have to pick up the estimated $600,000 annual tab to keep the cameras rolling.
- About 170 fixed cameras, known as "hardwires," are permanently mounted atop light poles in six of the nine Baltimore police districts. The hardwires cost $25,000 apiece. Patrol cops are stationed near the cameras, and the recorded images are monitored inside police stations across the city, usually by retired police officers. The images are stored for 30 days on computer hard drives.
- The portable blue-lit cameras are nicknamed "the pod" and cost $20,000. Officers view the pod's images from a screen enclosed in a black briefcase inside their squad cars. One briefcase can link to many nearby pods. Only pods, and not fixed cameras, feature the flashing blue light. Police said the pod's main goal is to quickly quell crime.
- Baltimore police said they have seen an average 17 percent drop in crime in the areas where the cameras were installed.
- More than 1,400 arrests based on camera images have been made since January, Cassella said. The majority of the arrests have been for minor crimes (carrying marijuana, littering, etc.), according to Baltimore prosecutors. Margaret Burns, spokeswoman for the Baltimore prosecutor's office, calculated that from December through May, only one of every six arrests made through use of the cameras resulted in a guilty verdict. She blamed the low number of convictions on the "grainy" images the cameras usually produce. Burns said prosecutors have a hard time telling the difference between a "cigarette and a blunt" when watching a recording.
Posted by rshah at July 18, 2006 08:14 PM
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