Add Louisville to the places considering the installation of cameras to deter and catch criminals, reports the Louisville Courier-Journal. Louisville officials may spend about $300,000 next year for about 10 surveillance cameras in some of the city’s crime hotspots. “It’s another tool in our box that we ought to consider using,” said Police Chief Robert White. “If they are as effective as I think they will be, then I’ll propose we expand the program.”
White said the department would use violent-crime statistics to help determine where the initial cameras would go. Surveillance cameras have been successful in reducing crime in other cities, including Cincinnati, Baltimore, and New York, White said. Louisville officers visited Cincinnati to get ideas about how cameras might work here. Cincinnati put cameras in four neighborhoods about a year ago, said Sean Darks of CityWatcher.com, which installs and maintains the cameras. The cameras are connected to a wireless video feed that can be monitored by both police and community volunteers. They are on day and night. There now are 40 cameras in the city, with a proposal before the City Council to add 117 more in February. Arrests in one area monitored by a camera rose to 70 from 35. In another location, calls for service dropped to about five per month from about three per day after cameras were installed.
Link: http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051117/NEWS01/511170419