Cover Story: Here’s Looking at You

It has been almost two years since Cincinnati police aimed a surveillance camera at the Five Points intersection in Evanston. In a report to city council, Safety Director Kent Ryan reported that “30-40 drug dealers and buyers” had consistently occupied this location before the camera’s installation.

By April this year, four more cameras had been set up to combat drug activity and prostitution in Northside, Madisonville, Mount Auburn and Over-the-Rhine. Avondale and College Hill are slated to get cameras in coming months.

These well publicized cameras have triggered little vocal opposition. Even the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), usually on the front lines of issues with such constitutional implications, has remained largely silent about Cincinnati’s surveillance cameras.

“We vehemently oppose the use of surveillance cameras in public places but, right now, there is no consistent body of law,” said Gino Scarselli, associate legal director of the ACLU of Ohio. “We are trying to think it through and find a place to challenge.”

Michael Endres, director of the master’s program in criminal justice at Xavier University, thinks the ACLU will be hard-pressed to successfully challenge the cameras in court.

“There’s no search and seizure issue,” Endres said.

“And, if the camera is pointed at a public place, there’s no reasonable expectation of privacy. Without expectation of privacy, there’s no invasion of privacy.”

In 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a bookmaking conviction in Katz vs. the United States, ruling that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had obtained evidence illegally by attaching an eavesdropping device to a telephone booth. The court ruled that the defendant had reasonably expected that his conversation would be private, even though it occurred in a public place.

This decision established a two-step test for subsequent invasion of privacy cases: Does the individual have a reasonable expectation of privacy in a given situation? If so, does society recognize that expectation as reasonable?

The test established in Katz presents a substantial roadblock to camera opponents. Courts have consistently held that, in most scenarios, people have no reasonable expectation of privacy in public spaces.

Another obstacle encountered by camera opponents is the concept, promoted by many legal experts, that police cameras merely operate as a proxy for police officers. According to this theory, no constitutionally significant difference exists between an officer standing on a corner and a camera perched on a post. Both perform the same function — monitoring the activity within their fields of vision.

Faced with an unpromising judicial route to halting the use of police surveillance cameras, Scarselli thinks that public opinion might be more effective.

“Courts may not be the best bet,” Scarselli said. “But the public may be able to convince politicians to stop promoting these cameras.”

But many in Cincinnati, far from opposing surveillance cameras, have requested them for their neighborhoods. Both the Evanston Community Council and the Evanston Business Association lobbied Councilman Phil Heimlich for the Five Points camera.

“Those groups really pushed to get a camera on that corner,” said Heimlich’s assistant, Jeff Eichhorn. “And, working with the police, we responded.”

Other business and community organizations, such as the Avondale Public Safety Task Force, Madisonville Community Council and the Over-the-Rhine Safety Committee, also requested cameras for their neighborhoods. In addition to these groups, 700 people from Northside, 400 from Mount Auburn and 500 from College Hill signed petitions asking city council for a camera in their respective communities.

Given the widely publicized success of surveillance cameras, such support is not surprising. In 1995, a surveillance camera mounted on a nearby building recorded Timothy McVeigh as he parked a Ryder truck near the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. McVeigh then ignited powerful explosives in the truck, killing 168 people and injuring more than 500 others. The images captured by the camera were instrumental in McVeigh’s identification and conviction.

And week after week, large audiences tune in to reality-based television shows to see killers, thieves and con men brought to justice by the ever-vigilant eye of a surveillance camera.

But crime statistics since the Five Points camera was installed show that while crime initially decreased near the site, it now is increasing:

· Four months after the installation of this camera, nine offenses were reported within 1,000 feet of the camera. This represents an 82 percent decrease from the 51 offenses reported in the area during the same period in the prior year.

· During the year ending October 31, 1998, the first full year of the camera’s operation, 80 crimes were reported within 1,000 feet of the camera — a decrease of 52 percent from the 167 crimes reported in the year before the camera’s installation.

· But during the seven months from November 1, 1998, to May 31, 1999, 82 crimes were reported within the camera’s range — a 141 percent increase over the 34 crimes reported in the seven months ending May 31, 1998.

· Crime reported at the Five Points area during the most recent period, however, is 5 percent lower than the 86 crimes reported during the same period prior to the camera’s installation.

Still, with the near-unanimous approval of state and federal courts and only a smattering of organized opposition, many politicians promote surveillance cameras as the perfect crime-fighting tool. Eager to assume a tough-guy stance on crime, politicians and police chiefs have pointed surveillance cameras at the public in, among other cities, Atlanta, New York City, Baltimore and Tacoma.

Unlike hiring more police officers or instituting after-school and vocational programs, surveillance cameras are inexpensive and, therefore, an easy sell to a tax-weary electorate. Each of Cincinnati’s cameras cost less than $20,000 to purchase and install and require little maintenance.

The cameras also provide politicians with a powerful re-election weapon — dramatic crime reduction numbers. Officials in England and Scotland claim that cameras have cut crime by as much as 75 percent in some areas. In New York City, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Police Commissioner Howard Safir have boasted that cameras slashed crime by up to 40 percent in public housing projects. In Baltimore, officials point to a 33 percent drop in crime in the downtown areas covered by cameras.

But each of these statistics addresses only the crime reduction in the area directly under the camera’s lens. None address the possible relocation of crime to other areas, known as crime displacement.

The results of crime displacement studies vary greatly, with camera supporters and opponents citing those studies that bolster their claims. Supporters of Cincinnati’s cameras, including Heimlich and Ryan, point to research performed by Lorraine Green Mazerolle, director of the Center of Criminal Justice Research at the University of Cincinnati.

Mazerolle analyzed the criminal activity in and around drug “hot spots” targeted by police in Oakland, Calif. Her study found little evidence of displacement from these targeted areas into a “two-block boundary around the target location.”

According to these parameters, criminals relocating to an area more than two blocks away from the targeted area and customers purchasing drugs or sex from an alternate source more than two blocks away were not taken into account.

The report acknowledges that the two-block boundary is “somewhat arbitrary” and that “offenders may have gone further than the two-block catchment area,” but Mazerolle thinks that several factors generally prevent criminals from easily relocating outside of a two-block area.

“The criminal needs to have a knowledge of the area, a network of support,” Mazerolle said. “For drug dealers and prostitutes, their customers need to know where to find them. And people are also very territorial. Only a small percentage of corners in any urban area are suitable for criminal activity, and many of those may have already been claimed by other criminals.”

Other studies with similar parameters yielded similar results. A crackdown on prostitution in one area of England did not result in problems on “surrounding streets,” and, according to another study co-authored by Mazerolle, the targeting of drug hot spots in Jersey City, N.J., resulted in little displacement to a “two-block area surrounding each drug hot spot.”

In 1997, the design of crime displacement studies concerned experts at the University of Maryland. After examining all available studies relevant to crime displacement, they concluded that the scarcity of evidence of crime displacement might partially be a result of the methodologies employed by researchers.

“It is possible that more displacement would be found if evaluators were more diligent in their search for it,” the report read. “Most prevention evaluations do not report on possible displacement effects and when they do, the evidence used is almost always weaker than the evidence used to support the main findings.”

Indeed, when the geographical scope of crime displacement studies is widened, the results are quite different from those reached by Mazerolle. National Public Radio recently reported that the Northern Manhattan Initiative — an intense effort to eradicate drugs from the Washington Heights area of New York City — caused a significant increase in drug trafficking and arrests in Yonkers, West Chester County, parts of New Jersey and several Long Island cities. Several police chiefs from these affected areas theorized that, instead of risking arrest in an area of increased police activity, drug dealers moved into quiet suburbs where the police were not equipped to handle them.

Similarly, large increases in staffing in one New York City precinct caused a jump in crime in surrounding precincts, while a street lighting program in one precinct of Newark, N.J., moved crime to other precincts. In each of these cases, researchers determined that crime prevention strategies in one area led to increases in criminal activity in other areas.

Mazerolle and David Hurley, a criminal justice doctoral candidate at the University of Cincinnati, are conducting research to determine the effectiveness of three of the city’s five surveillance cameras. Their research is based both on crime statistics within 1,000 feet of each camera and on the examination of randomly selected images captured by the cameras.

The data collection phase of this study has just recently been completed, and the final report is months away.

Sgt. Tom Tanner, Cincinnati Police District 2 coordinator, said current statistics that suggest an increase in crime in the Five Points area are not surprising.

“I expect people to challenge the camera,” Tanner said. “They’ll want to see what they can get away with.”

Capt. David Gregory, planning section commander, said an evaluation was underway to determined what the numbers meant.

“The city is concerned with the increase,” he said. “That’s why the evaluation is being conducted to determine (the camera’s effectiveness.”

March, April and May have shown the most significant increase, but many factors are involved, he said. One that quickly came to mind, he said, was the warm weather.

While crime in Evanston, like that throughout Cincinnati and the nation, has been on a downward trend for several years, crime increased in the area around the camera that was not monitored by it, police said.

As drug intelligence coordinator with the Street Corner Unit of the Cincinnati Police Division, Officer James Bertram is responsible for tracking drug activity. He thinks that some of the crime from Five Points moved right around the corner.

“The camera pushed crime off of the main streets and onto side streets,” Bertram said. “We were getting calls and complaints from streets that had never had any problems. You know how it is if you turn the lights on and the room is full of rats — the rats run to other rooms. That’s what happened here.”

But the Evanston camera’s initial success has been the impetus for installing six more cameras around Cincinnati. With each successive camera, Heimlich’s news releases continue to cite the 82 percent drop in crime on the Five Points corner that occurred in early 1998.

“I’m hanging my hat on those numbers,” said Heimlich assistant Eichhorn, referring to the 82 percent decrease. “To my knowledge, they are the only numbers out.”

Statistics aside, those who live and work under the camera seem satisfied with its performance.

“We are working with city council and the police to reposition the camera to a more effective location,” said Yvonne Brown, Evanston Community Council member and social service consultant for F&H Services, an Evanston-based property management company. “But, even where it is, it has brought the area a long way.”

John Wright, owner of Johnny’s Barber Shop at 3301 Montgomery Road, agrees.

“The camera has done extremely well,” he said. “It’s one of the components that eliminated loitering on that corner.”

Wright also credits anti-drug marches and vigils and the closing of a nearby KFC restaurant with improving the corner.

And Officer Sal Tufano, who served as a neighborhood patrolman in Evanston until recently, thinks that the benefits of the camera cannot always be quantified.

“Sure, the statistics are important,” he said. “But I really felt the impact of the camera when the guy who runs the recreation center told me that new kids were coming in because their parents finally felt that the area was safe enough.”

But the ACLU’s Scarselli thinks that all Cincinnatians should carefully consider the presence of constant police surveillance in the city.

“By accepting these cameras without questioning them, the public is affirming that they do not expect privacy,” Scarselli said. “The courts have ruled that if you do not expect privacy, your privacy cannot be invaded. It may soon be too late to back up and start asking questions.”

What questions should the public be asking?

“Anything and everything,” Scarselli said. “Are the cameras effective? What happens to the tapes before they’re destroyed or reused? Who has access to them? Who is actually monitoring the camera?”

Policies established for the surveillance camera program call for tapes that are not needed as evidence to be reused after 96 hours. The police division is in possession of the tapes at all times.

Eichhorn said that uniformed police officers currently monitor the cameras’ images. Plans outlined in a report to city council, however, provide for the possibility of volunteer monitoring personnel.

Although policies and guidelines govern the police use of surveillance cameras on Cincinnati’s public spaces, very little legislation exists at city, state or federal levels to prohibit the abuse of this power.

In 1985, the now-defunct U.S. Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) issued a report on the use of electronic surveillance which found that, despite the potential for misuse of video surveillance techniques, police activities were virtually unregulated. The report recommended the enactment of “strict limits” on public surveillance practices.

Fifteen years later, Ohio’s legislators have yet to regulate video surveillance, even as technology continues to move forward. “Face recognition” software, already being used in Britain, can now be combined with surveillance cameras to match images with a database of previously photographed faces. With enough cameras in place, anyone’s daily activities could be monitored, tracked and catalogued by police.

According to David Toon, regional director of sales for Pinkerton Systems Integration, the company which supplies Cincinnati’s surveillance systems, the city’s cameras could utilize this new technology.

“The cameras have that capability,” he said, “but Cincinnati is not using it.”

Councilman Heimlich sees no need for this face recognition software.

“At this time, we don’t have any plans to do that,” Heimlich said. “We just want to provide some relief to neighborhoods overrun by drug dealers and prostitutes.”

Even if this camera does not ultimately provide relief by directly reducing crime, many people feel that it has been a catalyst for community involvement and improvement.

“Knowing that the camera is there has spurred people into action,” said the community council’s Brown. “It makes people feel that there is something backing up their efforts. The camera has been a big asset to this community.”

Sgt. Tanner agrees that the camera has played an integral role in getting residents involved in the Evanston community.

“The people of Evanston have done wonders with the area,” he said. “The community just won a $750,000 award from the federal Weed-and-Seed initiative. Over 100 neighborhoods nationwide applied for it, and only 19 or so won. The camera is not a cure-all, but it got the ball rolling. Evanston’s residents have kept it rolling.”

Weed-and-Seed is a federally sponsored program that requires the collaboration of the police and the community. The police “weed” areas of drug activity through stepped-up enforcement, and property owners and residents rehabilitate (“seed”) the reclaimed properties.

But the ACLU’s Scarselli thinks that Cincinnati might be trading its personal privacy for such benefits.

“It’s a small step from monitoring public spaces to tracking individuals’ movements around the city and around the country,” he said. “If the government can legally monitor public spaces, then there is currently no law that can prevent them from selectively following individuals.”

Scarselli’s fears echo those stated in 1984 by the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Although this court found the FBI’s use of video surveillance lawful in United States vs. Alejandrina Torres et al., its ruling includes a warning of the potential dangers of video surveillance:

“We think it also unarguable that television surveillance is exceedingly intrusive … and inherently indiscriminate, and that it could be grossly abused — to eliminate personal privacy as understood in modern Western nations.”

Are surveillance cameras a malevolent threat to personal privacy, a heroic neighborhood crime-fighter, or both?

Cincinnati, one of only a handful of U.S. cities that monitor public spaces with surveillance cameras, might help answer this question for the nation. ©

This article appears in Jul 14-20, 1999.