Houston Expands Downtown Surveillance, Unsure If It Helps 60
SpaceGhost writes "The Associated Press reports that the Houston (Texas) Police will be adding 180 surveillance cameras in the downtown area, bringing the total to close to 1000. While most cover public areas (stadiums, theater district) the police suggest that Houston also has more 'critical infrastructure' (energy companies) than other cities. Interestingly AP points out that 'Officials say data is not kept to determine if the cameras are driving down crime.' Didn't London face the same issue?"
Well... (Score:4, Interesting)
'Officials say data is not kept to determine if the cameras are driving down crime.'
It seems to me, that if there _WERE_ concrete evidence of crime being reduced, they _WOULD_ keep data.
If the cities would collect data, that does NOT show a drop in crime, then city officials might be criticized for the whole operation... ...without the data - it's hard to nail them down on it...
Re:Houston, We Have a Problem... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: Houston, We Have a Problem... (Score:2, Interesting)
Agreed. I've called HPD three times since I moved to Houston - once for a burglary that had happened in the previous 20 minutes, once for a possible crime in progress, and once for an emergency in progress. They did not send anyone to investigate any of the incidents. In the case of the burglary, a smartphone was taken that had its location tracker activated. After a couple hours, the thief turned on the phone and I obtained an address, with the GPS error bubble smaller than the house on the map. HPD refused to take the address or a screenshot of the map with GPS error bubble, despite the fact that a credit card stolen in the same burglary had been used at a gas station two blocks away from that house. HPD is a waste of taxpayer dollars.