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Last Updated: Oct 16th, 2008 - 13:33:17 |
As you step out from the chaotic environment of a Denver bar – whether to catch a breath of fresh air or to savor your anticipated cigarette break – don’t be alarmed if you see a camera mounted nearby pointing in your direction. It’s just the Denver Police Department catching a glimpse of your beautiful profile. Be sure to smile and wave.
The Denver police have added a new program to help monitor its streets in the hopes of lowering crime. High Activity Location Observation, better known as HALO, is a blooming closed-circuit television-monitoring program that has been in development for about a year and a half.
This modern form of policing has emerged across the U.S., and Denver has decided to follow in the footsteps of other major cities to help survey high-crime areas and assist officers on the streets.
The reason: to lower crime, develop crime strategies that have proven successful in other parts of the U.S., and to concentrate on high-crime areas based on emergency caller frequency and statistics, said Sgt. Ernest Martinez, the Denver police officer who is heading the HALO program.
“The bottom goal is to engage the community with tried-and-true crime prevention strategies,” Martinez said.
According to the 2006 Denver police report, the goal of the HALO program is to “enhance the safety and security of Denver’s citizens, police officers, workers, visitors, public buildings and commercial enterprises, educational institutions, healthcare facilities, cultural art, entertainment and other tourist venues.”
Not all cameras will be placed in specific areas where crime is high, but also where potential crime could occur.
“Technology is adding eyes to the department through video monitoring of crime-prone public areas,” wrote Denver police Chief Gerald Whitman in the department’s 2006 annual report.
For those who are wondering if the Denver police’s monitoring program is legal, the answer can be found under the First Amendment. As part of any citizen’s constitutional right, the Denver police can view any citizen in a public place, Martinez said.
“This means a sidewalk, park or alleyway,” he said. “Anywhere where a citizen has public space or no privacy.”
Still, doubts linger about the misuse of surveillance programs. In August 2005, Whitman was taken to court by the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado because of controversial “spy files” kept by the Intelligence Unit of the Denver police. The “spy files” indicated that the Denver police were monitoring and recording protest organizations and activities, and falsely labeling them as “criminal extremists,” as stated in an affidavit of Mark Silverstein, legal adviser for the ACLU in 2005.
So, will the Denver police use the HALO program as another tool to conduct its alleged spying endeavors?
“Absolutely not,” Martinez replied.
Those working in control centers will receive recurring and updated training on the department’s polices and procedures in regard to civil rights, privacy and routine spot checks on the cameras, Martinez said.
Silverstein doesn’t have much faith in the HALO program in terms of public safety.
“I think it’s going to be abused,” Silverstein said. “People are going to be more reluctant to exercise their First Amendment right and express views on controversy if their images are going to be captured and stored.”
After several years of research, Electronic Privacy Information Center, or EPIC, a watchdog of surveillance programs based in Washington, D.C., released a report suggesting that camera surveillance has little effect on crime and that it is more effective to add actual officers on the streets and to improve lighting in areas where crime is high. It went on to say that in 2004, cities such as Detroit, Miami, Milwaukee and Oakland abandoned the use of their monitoring programs “because of poor results.”
Metro student Jeff Fuller thinks that as long as the cameras are in a public area, viewing public spaces, then the HALO program is a good idea.
“Since it’s in a public place it’s not too much of a problem if they are trying to keep the place safe,” he said. “If it costs the same amount to put one officer on the street than five or six cameras, then I would say it would be better to have the cameras.”
Metro freshman Yvonne Henderson said she would rather have more officers on the streets preventing crime then using cameras to monitor crime.
“Look at the U.S. in general, they are trying to control American’s minds and provoke fear into people,” Henderson said.
The cameras will operate 24/7, and recorded images will be fed into a control center through a network where they will be monitored and stored for up to 30 days. After 30 days, all images that do not show evidence of a suspected crime will be purged from the network. The cameras are designed to make 360-degree turns, move up and down, left and right, and zoom in and out of its given space, all within a span of 300 feet in each direction, according to Martinez.
Denver police and the Technology Services Division of the city are still experimenting with recording and quality of receivable images, the program is expected to be underway by the end of this year. Funding is still sketchy and latent as Martinez implied that the department is looking down many avenues for resources.
“We are looking at our budget, grant money and how to leverage money and resources,” Martinez said.
The Denver police department has looked at other cities in the world and has scrutinized their success and failures so they can hit the ground running with the HALO program, Martinez said.
“We are excited about it, and the community is going to be embraced and help to eliminate the community of bad guys,” Martinez said.
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