Street Cameras Are Likely to Stay

Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) said the cameras are useful in dispersing certain kinds of crime.

"I have various pockets in my ward where crime has become embedded, an established drug trade at a particular location," Graham said. "By putting in a camera there, you scatter that. The very fact of scattering crime is positive."

Once the crime scatters, police have a responsibility to pursue it, he said.

The neighborhood crime-fighting cameras are distinct from a wireless network of 19 permanently installed cameras that have been up since 2001 and are generally used to monitor crowds. Those are mounted on various buildings, mostly downtown, and focus on the Mall, the Capitol, the White House, Union Station and other places.

They are turned on only during major events, such as rallies and the Fourth of July celebration on the Mall. They also can be used in the event of an attack.

As for the neighborhood cameras, the first one was installed at 14th and Girard streets NW a day after Ricardo Jones, 22, was shot to death on that corner. A 15-year-old who had been arguing with Jones was charged with murder.

The cameras are not monitored by a person, but they record all the activities in their viewing area. If police think a crime occurred in the area, they can download the images, which are kept in the camera for 10 days.

Brito said that police have downloaded images five or six times but that they have yet to find a crime on a recording.

It's too early to tell how the cameras are doing, but the department plans to analyze the data every six months, Brito said.

There was a camera in the 3400 block of 13th Place SE on Sept. 25 when Andre Pee, 14, and Curtis Watkins, 32, were killed, each shot once in the back. But the camera was on the opposite side of the block and did not record the crime, police said.

That block has long been troubled by drug dealing and shootings. Another teenager was slain there on New Year's Eve.

Cities such as Baltimore, Chicago and Los Angeles have used neighborhood cameras for years, and officials there say they have helped reduce crime. In Baltimore, for example, police have noted a 17 percent drop in violent crime in areas with cameras.

Stephen Block, legislative counsel for the ACLU of the National Capital Area, said cameras do not reduce the crime rate and, at best, just displace criminals.

"Therefore they are a waste of money," Block said.

He estimated that the department could have hired almost four dozen officers with the $2.3 million it spent on neighborhood cameras. "It's a diversion of resources where the money can be better spent," he said.

He said people have the right "not to be spied on."

"Many people in this city and country have the feeling if they are in a public place, they have an assumption of anonymity," Block said. "They have the right to be left alone."