Toronto is joining the ranks of major cities such as New York, Chicago and Washington that are installing video surveillance to combat crime.
The Toronto police received $2 million in grants from the Ontario Ministry of Community, Safety and Correctional Services to conduct research about the impact on crime of video surveillance cameras in public spaces, says Staff Sergeant Mark Barkley.
In February 2006, the city began running pilots in high-crime areas of the city to get baseline data, he says. Unmanned and clearly marked video cameras were set up to collect data for six months in targeted areas, then taken down and set up in other districts. The project is slated to end in early 2009, when the results will be analyzed and submitted to the Toronto Police Service Board for review, and will be released to the public afterwards.
Recorded images are viewed by police only in the event of a reported incident, says Barkley. "Our focus is on shootings and stabbings, not the guy going into an alley to smoke a joint," he says. "There's only so much we can do." Public reaction to the cameras has been overwhelmingly favourable, he adds.
The environmental factors that contribute to the formation of criminal hot spots will be sussed out in the analysis. "The comparisons must look at the context, as different factors must be considered: the mix of commercial and residential property, width of the streets, height of buildings, and population densities," he says. "Wherever there are concentrations of violent calls, we're going to look at the reasons and work with local divisions."
Surveillance cameras have also been deployed by police departments in MontrC)al, Hamilton and Sudbury. But there's no consistency in the way they've been applied in various cities, he says. "There have been many studies done but they've produced conflicting results."
Analysis of one area can't be extrapolated to another, he warns. "Cities are all different. The only thing that matters is context. What is it about this intersection that makes it a hot-spot for crime?"
To tackle this problem scientifically, the Toronto police are geo-coding (assigning geographic data) to criminal incidents so correlations can be made about the time and place they occur. "Once you do that, you can do temporal and spatial analysis about when and where crime is happening to get a better understanding of it and how to apply police resources."
This application of geographic information systems (GIS) technology to crime analysis can lead to significant breakthroughs, says Jerry H. Ratcliffe, professor of criminal justice at Temple University in Philadelphia.
"Mapping crime is possibly one of the most useful innovations in crime analysis in the past few years," he says. "You can see how patterns change over time, and identify systemic weaknesses that make locations vulnerable to crime."
For example, if an entertainment district in a big city experiences a high number of assaults between 2:00 and 3:00 am in a particular block, mapping the data can lead to insights, says Ratcliffe. "If you look at the individual crimes that make up that hot spot, you may discover that four bars close at the same time in the strip. So you could put more officers on the beat at the right time or speak to bar owners about staggering their closing times."
While crime mapping can be done without video surveillance, combining the two creates a more complete picture. Mapping can help a city plan the best locations to install video surveillance to get maximum bang for its buck, he says. "It's not just about mapping where crime happens but also about the types of crime surveillance can prevent."
The real value in public video surveillance is in crime prevention rather than crime detection, he says. "It does have a secondary benefit as an investigative aide, but it should primarily be used as a prevention tool."
In Philadelphia, research was conducted with both manned and unmanned video surveillance, he says. "We found that in general, the introduction of video cameras was associated with a 13 per cent reduction in crime."
However, the jury is still out on the value of video surveillance in deterring crime in the long run. Critics claim the drop in crime is temporary when cameras are initially introduced, as people resume their usual behaviour over time once the novelty wears off.
Ratcliffe acknowledges the evidence is mixed. "It seems to work better in small confined areas that have clear goals, and where cameras are tied directly to police departments with someone observing."
Unmanned cameras are less useful, he says. "Prevention is helped by experienced officers being able to pre-empt serious crime. If they can see when crowds start to gather, for example, they can deploy officers to the scene."
The deterrent value can be maintained if people are constantly reminded that video cameras are present and that police are watching. "That's harder to do with remote camera recording systems, like they're using in Toronto."
He adds that there's been little public disquiet in the U.K., where huge amounts of public space are under surveillance. "In fact, some people are upset about not being included in government schemes."
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