Council approves SkyCop test run
Testing out a technology tool aimed at detering and preventing crime was approved by the Greenville City Council at their May 21 meeting.
Systems Technology Inc. made a presentation of its SkyCop Security Cameras product to the council at the recommendation of the public safety committee.
“SkyCop uses advance technology to proactively enhance law enforcement;s ability to solve crimes,” according to committee meeting minutes. “SkyCop’s camera system identifies disturbances, help track perpetrators and identifies crime hot spots efficiently so law enforcement can intervene. Its audio and video surveillance systems are able to employ superior technology for gun shot identification, thermal imaging and license plate recognition.”
The price per camera typically costs approximately $6,000 with a lease to own option.
The city was offered a 30-day trial period of one camera.
SkyCop representatives said the system runs autonomously and is able to address any issues it finds, calling it a “virtual officer on a pole.”
It operates 24 hours a day and has blue lights and auditory responses to situations such as loitering.
Representatives said SkyCop is operational in 12 states and is a tested product.
Base units are equipped with two cameras but can house as many as eight.
The tool can be installed with three straps to a pole in as little as 10 minutes and can also be placed on mobile unites, like those in Greenville’s Walmart parking lot.
The Walmart units were placed there by Walmart Corporate, SkyCop representatives said, noting 50 units were purchased and are placed by the national chain in areas where the units are or may be effective.
Moving units is important because crime moves after a SkyCop is in place, representatives said, suggesting to place the units in areas with high crime statistics.
“Crime doesn’t ever diminish, it just displaces,” a retired law enforcement officer and SkyCop representative said.
Councilwoman Lurann Thomas said she noted many SkyCops in operation in Memphis over the weekend during the Memphis in May festival.
She said she felt safer because of the tool’s presence and saw it work in action as it assisted law enforcement find a vehicle involved in a hit and run by tracking a licence plate.
Mayor Errick D. Simmons said the tool could be beneficial with festivals held in Greenville.
Council members acknowledged the equipment would likely become target practice and questioned how expensive SkyCops are to repair.
Representatives said it depends on the extent of the damage, but most units are not a total loss and only a component needs to be replaced.
System Technology has been in business since 2000 and has more than 600 SkyCop implementations in the Memphis market. It services businesses including Nike, FedEx and Grizzly.
Police Chief Delando Wilson said he is in support of obtaining SkyCop as a tool for the department.
“I’ve done a lot of research and everyone I talked to had nothing but wonderful things to say about it,” Wilson said. “I think it would be very effective in the entertainment district, business areas and high crime areas.”
Wilson advocated for pursuing the trial period to see the effectiveness.
SkyBots can be equipped with license plate cameras, which can be linked to a database to look for expired tags, warrants, stolen cars, amber alerts, FBI wanted list, of other issues associated with tags.
Councilman Al Brock asked if there were any statistics associated with the effectiveness of the SkyCop.
Representatives said examples of success could be given but not in statistic form.
Brock said while he could see it being helpful in solving crime, he was not yet convinced it can reduce crime.
Wilson said criminals actively try to avoid video surveillance.
“In the past five years, we have noticed criminals are mindful of video surveillance and the knowledge of the blue light and the video,” he said. “They will move to other area. We can’t cover an entire city with cameras, but we are able to solve so many more crimes when we have video.
“When citizens let us come in their homes and use their footage, we are more likely to be able to solve a crime,” Wilson continued. “I’m 100 percent positive and confident that this will reduce crime in a lot of ways. It will not stop it. It will be used to investigate, but I think it’s one of many, many tools to help us step into the new millennium in fighting crime. “
Councilman Bill Boykin said he has personally had an experience where a crime was solved, an arrest was made and brought to prosecution, but the suspect was not brought to conviction.
Recent cases in other states involving video surveillance and its admissibility and privacy issues were mentioned during the meeting, as well as concerns regarding litigation with entities as a result of video surveillance in buildings.
Brock agreed to the trial period and noted areas of concern.
“Cameras are not 100 percent,” he said. “It can be helpful, but we have to have the convictions for there to be a return on the investment.”
SkyCop representatives acknowledged there have been some legal concerns but the tool also has the ability to operate in a defensive capacity for entities in cases of negligence and other liability issues.
SkyCop representatives also shared grant information with the city, which would assist in paying for law enforcement equipment as it relates to physical security.
Clarksdale ask for surveillance tool bids
Clarksdale was also keen on adding Sky Cop to the department’s ranks in January and tried the devices at the intersection of MLK and Garfield.
Reports claim the decision may have been influenced by more than a dozen homicides last year.
Reportedly, the area was the focus of many 911 calls before the Sky Cops were placed.
The city is interested in growing the Sky Cop fleet to as much many as 50, according to Fox13.
The Press Register published bids for advertisement for tools similar to SkyCop specifications in April.
SkyCops used in Memphis, Crime moves away from techno-cop
In July 2018, an additional 200 surveillance cameras were installed in Memphis with funding coming from the city and neighborhood associations, WMC 5 Memphis reported.
Memphis City Council approved a resolution to spend $1.5 million to put about 200 cameras in public places across the city's seven districts such as community centers, parks, and pools.
Four more neighborhood associations pooled their money together to buy a SkyCop for their neighborhood.
In 2016, the Memphis City Council approved locations based on crime data for 10 cameras in each of the city’s seven districts.
One report shows what happened after those cameras started recording. In the first 90 days, five out of seven districts showed a reduction in crime.
Crime in District 2 in Hickory Hill near Riverdale and Raines showed the largest reduction by 69 percent.
However, crime increased by 33 percent in District 4 in the area of I-240 and South Parkway.
Crime in District 5 near Jackson Avenue and Hollywood Street increased by 72 percent.
MPD Deputy Chief Don Crowe and Major Stephen Chandler gave WMC a look at where and how the data captured by SkyCops is analyzed.
"The Real Time Crime Center is staffed 24 hours a day by commissioned police officers to assist with the crimes in Memphis,” Deputy Crowe said in November last year
Inside the Real Time Crime Center are dozens of monitors that have access to 2,000 cameras in 500 locations across the city, producing millions of hours of footage each year.
The staff watching those cameras, however, is very small.
“We’re short staffed as well as all of Memphis Police Department, but we at least have several eyes meaning 3-5 eyes that are watching cameras,” Major Chandler said. “Now understand that we’re not watching every camera that we own. The video was recorded at the camera itself and we access it when we need it.”
The city owns 140 cameras. The rest, like the ones in Central Gardens and Belle Meade neighborhoods, were donated to MPD by the residents who live in those neighborhoods.
The average cost is $5,500 per unit, and $2,500 grants to put toward the cameras are available through the city.
“Cameras are not right for everyone, and we worry sometimes that cameras give people this false sense,” Chief Crowe said. “Cameras should always just be a layer of security.”
"We tell everybody this anecdote: every bank has cameras in it, but people still rob banks,” Chief Crowe said.
Data to support SkyCop’s ability to reduce crime is not available, Ken Shackleford, VP of SkyCop Inc. sales said at Greenville City Council meeting May 21.
“The statistics are not there,” Shackleford said, noting what information is available shows a trend in crime moving rather than being reduced.
Video surveillance questioned by ACLU
According to the American Civic Liberties Union, there are issues with public video surveillance.
“Video cameras, or closed-circuit television (CCTV), are becoming a more and more widespread feature of American life. Fears of terrorism and the availability of ever-cheaper cameras have accelerated the trend even more. The use of sophisticated systems by police and other public security officials is particularly troubling in a democratic society…. Police-operated cameras have proliferated in many other cities across America in just the past several years,” the ACLU said in a report.
Although the ACLU stated it has no objection to cameras at specific, high-profile public places, such as the U.S. Capitol, the impulse to blanket our public spaces and streets with video surveillance is a bad idea, the organization said.
Effectivness
The expense of an extensive video surveillance system far exceeds the limited benefits that the system may provide in investigating crime. There is no evidence that cameras reduce petty crimes.
In Britain, where cameras have been extensively deployed in public places, sociologists studying the issue have found that they have not reduced crime. "Once the crime and offence figures were adjusted to take account of the general downward trend in crimes and offences," criminologists found in one study, according to the ACLU.
“Reductions were noted in certain categories but there was no evidence to suggest that the cameras had reduced crime overall in the city centre." A 2005 study for the British Home Office also found that cameras did not cut crime or the fear of crime (as had a 2002 study, also for the British government).
In addition, U.S. government experts on security technology, noting that "monitoring video screens is both boring and mesmerizing," have found in experiments that "after only 20 minutes of watching and evaluating monitor screens, the attention of most individuals has degenerated to well below acceptable levels."
ACLU on Abuse
One problem with creating such a powerful surveillance system is that experience tells us it will inevitably be abused, the ACLU states.
• Criminal
Surveillance systems present law enforcement "bad apples" with a tempting opportunity for criminal misuse. In 1997, for example, a top-ranking police official in Washington, DC was caught using police databases to gather information on patrons of a gay club. By looking up the license plate numbers of cars parked at the club and researching the backgrounds of the vehicles' owners, he tried to blackmail patrons who were married. Imagine what someone like that could do with a citywide spy-camera system.
• Institutional
Sometimes, bad policies are set at the top, and an entire law enforcement agency is turned toward abusive ends. That is especially prone to happen in periods of social turmoil and intense conflict over government policies. During the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War, for example, the FBI - as well as many individual police departments around the nation - conducted illegal operations to spy upon and harass political activists who were challenging racial segregation and the Vietnam War. This concern is especially justified since we are in some respects enduring a similar period of conflict today.
• Personal purposes
Powerful surveillance tools also create temptations to abuse them for personal purposes. An investigation by the Detroit Free Press, for example, showed that a database available to Michigan law enforcement was used by officers to help their friends or themselves stalk women, threaten motorists after traffic altercations, and track estranged spouses.
• Discriminatory targeting
Video camera systems are operated by humans who bring to the job all their existing prejudices and biases. In Great Britain, camera operators have been found to focus disproportionately on people of color. According to a sociological study of how the systems were operated, "Black people were between one-and-a-half and two-and-a-half times more likely to be surveilled than one would expect from their presence in the population."
ACLU on Limits
Advanced surveillance systems need to be subject to checks and balances. Because the technology has evolved so quickly, however, checks and balances to prevent the kinds of abuses outlined above don't exist. We are a nation of laws and rights that have their root in law. While the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution offers some protection against video searches conducted by the police, there are currently no general, legally enforceable rules to limit privacy invasions and protect against abuse of CCTV systems. Rules are needed to establish a clear public understanding of such issues as whether video signals are recorded, under what conditions, and how long are they retained; what the criteria are for access to archived video by other government agencies, or by the public; how the rules would be verified and enforced; and what punishments would apply to violators.
ACLU on Public Life
The growing presence of public cameras will bring subtle but profound changes to the character of our public spaces. When citizens are being watched by the authorities - or aware they might be watched at any time - they are more self-conscious and less free-wheeling. As syndicated columnist Jacob Sullum has pointed out, "knowing that you are being watched by armed government agents tends to put a damper on things. You don't want to offend them or otherwise call attention to yourself." Eventually, he warns, "people may learn to be careful about the books and periodicals they read in public, avoiding titles that might alarm unseen observers. They may also put more thought into how they dress, lest they look like terrorists, gang members, druggies or hookers." Indeed, the studies of cameras in Britain found that people deemed to be "out of time and place" with the surroundings were subjected to prolonged surveillance.
Issues in Louisiana
In response to the severe crime problem in New Orleans in January 2007, , the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana today called on Police Chief Warren Riley to "get tough" and lawfully target known criminals, while respecting and protecting the constitutional freedoms of residents. The ACLU also called for independent oversight of the police to build trust with the public, and urged public officials to engage in preventative measures to strengthen communities and families and rebuild support structures.
"Use smart policing to lawfully target known murderers, rapists, robbers, and assaulters and bring them to justice," said Joe Cook, Executive Director of the ACLU of Louisiana.
Noting that 85 percent of offenders are never caught, Cook added, "The problem with our criminal justice system is not softness but low apprehension rates."
Then Senator Mary Landrieu's proposal for surveillance cameras raised even more questions. No objective data exists to support the use of video surveillance by police in public places to prevent or solve crimes. In London, where 150,000 cameras were installed to reduce crime, certain incidents of violent crime actually rose after the network was installed. In addition, the personnel in charge of operating the cameras engaged in widespread violations of civil liberties. They focused almost exclusively on people of color, gays and young people, and monitored public meetings, marches and demonstrations.
"Again, we need to think creatively and make changes already proven to work elsewhere, like those presented at the most recent crime summit," said Cook. "Invest heavily in prevention that stabilizes and strengthens families to prevent crime, which makes more sense than just trying to catch criminals after people have been murdered, raped, or robbed. Stop wasting valuable police resources on arresting and incarcerating people on municipal offenses for which a citation would suffice."
"Effective law enforcement and protection of civil liberties are both essential in a democracy with individual liberty. The ACLU believes that we can be both safe and free," Cook added.
