KHOU-11’s Jeff McShan reports that the installation of downtown surveillance cameras will be complete by the end of this week:
After a lot of red tape and a lot of talk about privacy, the day has finally arrived.
High above the streets and sidewalks downtown, HPD will be able to watch people coming and going 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
[snip]
“We want to make places where a lot of citizens travel will be safe. We want to have something that if there is an incident, it would be available to the investigators to help identify the suspect,” Mayor Bill White said.
The cameras were being installed in five areas downtown, starting Wednesday and running through the end of the week, all along the Main Street corridor.
The area is home to nightclubs and restaurants, and is where the city parties for big events like all-star games and the Super Bowl.
And some people don’t seem to mind the prying eyes.
“It’s not going to bother me. I am just going to class,” Jennifer Baldwin said.
The wireless cameras were financed by Houston’s downtown management district, but they will be monitored by HPD’s Special Operations Division at the George R. Brown Convention Center.
HPD says the videos will not be available to the public, but as the mayor said, they’ll be used to keep the public safe and to solve crimes.
Actually, in London, which leads the way with thousands of surveillance cameras, a new study shows that cameras do little to keep citizens safe:
“Our figures show that there is no link between a high number of CCTV cameras and a better crime clear-up rate,” she said. “Boroughs with thousands of CCTV cameras are no better at doing so than those which have a few dozen.”
Proponents of CCTV’s usefulness usually focus on its role in preventing crime, rather than solving it. But although the cameras across London’s public transport system allowed police officers to identify within a few days those responsible for the July 7, 2005, tube-train bombings in the city, the cameras did nothing to prevent the attack.
And a detailed study of 14 public CCTV installations in a 2005 report by the Home Office Research, Development and Statistics Directorate, “Assessing the impact of CCTV,” concluded that “the CCTV schemes that have been assessed had little overall effect on crime levels.”
The study says only one in five crimes are solved, even though there are 10,000 surveillance cameras keeping an eye on London residents.
Is it comforting to know that a crime committed along Main Street can be watched by someone sitting inside the GRB?
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