Thursday, December 02, 1999
Hamilton takes cameras to streets
Aim: Deter crime in trouble spots
BY DAVID ECK
Enquirer Contributor
HAMILTON — This city is going high-tech in the low-tech activity of watching the streets.
The city, in cooperation with the Butler Metropolitan Housing Authority, has installed three video cameras on telephone poles along Front Street, traditionally a high-crime area. The cameras will monitor activity on the streets and are expected to further reduce crime in the troubled section, Hamilton Police Officer David Crawford said.
The equipment — two fixed cameras and one that can be rotated 360 degrees — should be functioning within a week.
“It's for the safety of the neighborhood residents,” Officer Crawford said. “They (residents) should have a little more feeling of safety within their neighborhood.”
Police can use the cameras to watch the area at specific times and can also record activity along the streets whenever they want, said Hamilton Officer Essex Shepherd, the department's community resource officer.
“It will be operated off and on by various police department members,” Officer Crawford said.
Undercover and community policing officers will primarily use the equipment. The cam eras will cover a five-block area and cost about $20,000.
The equipment provides a safer environment for residents, deters crime and can help give police a detailed view of any crime that does take place.
“Most of the carry-outs, they have had cameras for years,” Officer Crawford said. “That's a deterrent as well.”
Cincinnati was one of the first Tristate communities to fight crime with video cameras when it put one in Evans ton in late 1996. In the first six months after the camera was installed, crime in the area dropped 82 percent, said Cincinnati City Councilman Phil Heimlich.
“This is just one tool we can use to fight crime and make our community safe,” he said. “Once the camera goes up, the bad guys clear out. (It's) one program that can be very effective.”
Since 1996, Cincinnati has installed six more cameras in various city neighborhoods.
Middletown, also in conjunction with the Butler Metropolitan Housing Authority, plans to have its first camera operating within a couple of weeks.
“I think that they will find it to be an effective tool in fighting crime,” Mr. Heimlich said. “After a while the criminals just don't want to mess with neighborhoods that are equipped with those kinds of programs. The cost of committing crime becomes too expensive and too risky.”
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