WDSU.com is reporting that the New Orleans crime camera system is overly expensive and ineffective. Originally projected to cost $2 million in tax payer funds, the project has cost $6 million so far and is still not complete. Criticism comes after the city’s interim inspector released a report citing serious flaws in the system.
The system was originally conceived as a way to deter criminals and better identify criminal activity within the city; however, out of the 250 installed cameras, only 145 are currently in operation. In addition to the low density of cameras, other recent reports have indicated that crime areas do little to no good in deterring overall crime, and don’t offer much help in identifying criminals.
Do you think a city-wide crime camera system could work, or are all such systems a waste of taxpayer money? Leave a comment.
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Cameras work best if you don’t care about moving the crime around the corner. Unless you can roll out cameras ubiquitously and secretly, so the bad guys don’t know where they are, they are only a deterrent for the area they’re pointing at. On the other hand, people who aren’t careful enough to know they’re there are convicted based on surveillance camera evidence sometimes.