Does anyone really support the use of these things? Here is how the debacle in New Orleans went. $10 million for three crimes, not including the bribe/kickback scandal for the cameras themselves, and New Orleans is still a shithole.

Mayor Mitch Landrieu wants to dump city's crime cameras

Quote :

"In seven years, New Orleans' crime camera program has yielded six indictments: three for crimes caught on video and three for bribes and kickbacks a vendor is accused of paying a former city official to sell the cameras to City Hall. Given that ignominious track record and the millions the city has paid for a camera network that rarely worked, Mayor Mitch Landrieu unceremoniously pulled the plug on the project Thursday. ... In 2005 and 2006, a larger camera project failed to get off the ground as various St. Pierre companies set up deals with computer giant Dell Inc. to sell them to New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Savannah, Ga., and elsewhere. St. Pierre gave [Greg] Meffert [the guy responsible for selling the cameras to New Orleans] a corporate credit card, letting him charge big sums for personal items while he was city tech chief, including exotic vacations for him, Nagin and their families. As soon as the civil trial ended last November, U.S. Attorney Jim Letten indicted St. Pierre, Meffert and Meffert's wife Linda, charging them with a 63-count corruption scheme centered on the crime camera deal and the money St. Pierre paid to the Mefferts. ... Records of exactly how much money the city spent on the cameras are spotty. The city has paid for equipment, but also for contract personnel to install and maintain the system over the years. The total could be as high as $10 million. A city tally of the contract costs in early 2009 totaled more than $6 million. A review of the post-Meffert crime camera contract earlier this year showed that 200 cameras and network equipment under the latest contract would have cost another $4 million."

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2010/10/new_orleans_crime_camera_progr.html

10/28/2010 8:30:57 AM

I think cameras do prevent/cut down on crimes, esp in businesses. Im not so sure how effective they are in limited numbers around a city.

10/28/2010 9:03:28 AM

Public cameras: 100% wrong
Private cameras: 100% okay

10/28/2010 11:18:53 AM

Quote :

"I think cameras do prevent/cut down on crimes, esp in businesses. Im not so sure how effective they are in limited numbers around a city."

10/28/2010 11:51:36 AM

They are big over in parts of europe. Dunno if they'd work well here.

10/28/2010 12:14:52 PM

Quote :

"They are big over in parts of europe."

And IIRC, just as much of a failure. I'll have to see if I can dig up the report, but I read a year or so ago that they did a study and pretty much found out that all the camera's actually do is move the crime to a different location, but don't actually reduce the crime rate. Essentially, the reason these things work for private businesses is that camera's can be placed every where in the business as it's a closed and limited area. I'm not too keen on using that solution to make public cams work.

10/28/2010 10:10:37 PM