By Allison Klein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 12, 2006; DZ01
If you walk into a drugstore, chances are you'll be caught on a surveillance camera. If you happen by an ATM, you're probably in view of a lens. This summer, District officials added 48 troubled street corners to the list of places where you're likely to be recorded.
Now the D.C. Council seems poised to make permanent the temporary surveillance cameras installed this summer as part of crime emergency legislation.
The District joined the ranks of cities across the country when it installed the cameras to deter crime and catch criminals. The D.C. Council approved legislation in July during a spike in violence to allow the cameras to go up for several weeks. The measure expires next Thursday, but the council has indicated that it will make the cameras permanent.
D.C. Council member Adrian M. Fenty (D-Ward 4), who is likely to become mayor after the general election in November, voted against the crime emergency package, which included the cameras. But after weighing the issue and listening to community activists, Fenty said he had changed his stance and now favors them. No other council member has publicly opposed them.
The city spent $2.3 million to purchase and install the devices and took about six weeks to get them affixed to strategic light posts. The Department of Public Works trimmed trees obstructing their view.
Groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union have denounced the cameras, saying they are ineffective and susceptible to abuse. A police survey of advisory neighborhood commissioners found that 79 percent of those who responded strongly agreed that surveillance cameras would help prevent crime. Some community leaders are jockeying to get them close to where they live.
"With crime going on the way it is, we need more cameras," said community activist Sandra Seegars, who lives in Congress Heights, in Southeast Washington.
The cameras were placed on blocks where robberies, drug dealing and assaults frequently occur, police said. Their locations are also based on recommendations from Advisory Neighborhood Commissions and civic associations. They are distributed across the city, with 14 in Northeast, 12 in Southeast, 21 in densely populated Northwest and one in Southwest.
All are encased in bullet-resistant boxes.
"They are designed to take a significant blow," said police Capt. Victor Brito, who is in charge of the cameras.
The cameras have to adhere to restrictions, including that they observe only public spaces where there is no expectation of privacy. Police said that they primarily monitor wide areas and that arbitrary or discriminatory tracking of individuals is prohibited.
Police said they are using the cameras as part of a crime-fighting strategy that includes increased patrols and targeted enforcement in certain high-crime areas.
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."