Post by Modesto Anarcho on Feb 23, 2009 23:27:11 GMT -5
Police: System has an effect, even if the stats don't show it
By Leslie Albrecht
RIPON -- If you're looking for evidence of how Ripon's state-of-the-art video surveillance system has affected crime, you won't find it in the city's crime statistics.
Recently released numbers show crime hasn't taken a drastic hit since the cameras were installed in 2005. Overall, major crimes have risen slightly.
But Police Chief Richard Bull says the $500,000 camera system was well worth the investment. Ripon's population has jumped about 30 percent since 2003, but its major crimes climbed only 4 percent during that period. By comparison, as Patterson's population swelled 54 percent, major crimes rose 32 percent.
Bull says the cameras, along with proactive policing and a cooperative community, are a key tool in keeping crime under control.
"Normally, you would go from 10,000 people to 15,000 people and you would experience a heightened increase in crimes," he said.
"And as we've added the truck stops (at the Jack Tone interchange), we have more people coming in from outside. I look at it and I'm just very pleased at what our crime stats are. South of us and north of us there's violent crime, but we're holding our own."
Ripon's 76 police cameras are mounted at major intersections, parks, schools and city offices. A few are inside businesses such as Ace Hardware.
The heart of the wireless surveillance system beats at Police Department headquarters on Wilma Avenue. A dispatcher wearing a headset is stationed at a bank of six monitors. On the wall above her, a 15-foot by 5-foot screen displays a checkerboard of video feeds. One square focuses on the skate park, another on the Weston Elementary playground. With the click of a button, the dispatcher can zoom in on one feed. Officers can watch feeds on screens in their patrol cars.
The network of cameras seems to keep an eye on every corner of the city. In reality, police aren't scrutinizing every feed Big Brother-style to catch crimes in progress. It's impossible for dispatchers to monitor all 76 feeds while fielding phone calls, said Communications Supervisor Linda Johnston.
Much of the cameras' value lies not in what they can do, but in what residents and criminals think they can do, Bull said.
"The reputation of the cameras helps a great deal," Bull said. "I've had people tell me, 'we don't go to Ripon to commit crimes.' The perception is that we're a safe community, and we like to keep it a safe community."
Police don't track whether cameras have assisted in solving specific crimes. But officers point to plenty of examples of how the system has enhanced crime fighting.
The cameras are most useful after a crime has been committed, Johnston said. Video footage recently helped identify two suspects in a car burglary at Spring Creek Golf & Country Club, he said.
After bathrooms near the bike path on Parallel Avenue were tagged with graffiti, video footage of cars in the parking lot helped officers track down the five teenage vandals, Johnston said.
In one case, the cameras proved that a crime hadn't happened, John- ston said. A gas station owner claimed he was robbed by two men, but video footage showed otherwise.
Sometimes just the threat of cameras is enough to clean up a neighborhood, said Detective Steve Merchant.
Residents on North Stockton Avenue were complaining about gang members selling drugs and drinking in public. Merchant met with gang leaders and told them the city was considering mounting a camera about 50 yards from where gang members hang out.
Gang members didn't want that, so Merchant used it as a bargaining chip. If gang members stopped drinking in public, dealing drugs and vandalizing the neighborhood with graffiti, the police wouldn't put up the camera. The deal worked.
"Miraculously, the crime in the alley stopped," Merchant said. "So for the people that live right there, how valuable is that camera system? If you lived there and had people outside drinking and smoking pot and then it went away -- how do you put a price on that?"
Bee staff writer Leslie Albrecht can be reached at lalbrecht@modbee.com or 578-2378.