Will 3,000 cameras make Chicago's public housing safer?

My first stop was my fellow ChicagoNow blogger, Joe the Cop.

Joe says in his experience, cameras are a good idea when you want to improve security. Especially if their presence is well-publicized and the cameras themselves are well-monitored If people feel like the police will show up right away if they commit a crime or even before they do, then they are likely to have a deterrent effect.

The problem, Joe says, is that cameras have become the go-to-move when it comes to law enforcement.

Joe pointed me to the Second City Cop blog, where there was a lot of to-do earlier this year over a comment that Mayor Daley made when he was visiting New Orleans to the city's mayor, Ray Nagin.

"Look, I like these crime cameras you guys are doing in New Orleans. They're cheaper than hiring more police officers and we're going to do them in a big way in Chicago," Daley said, according to Nagin during an appearance on the local FOX affiliate.

Cheaper than cops, eh? That's true. You don't have to pay a camera a pension when it gets old or buy it health insurance. You can just switch 'em off without any complaints, and that's they way I think our dear leader likes the city to run.

Next, I looked for some research. After all, I thought, if cities around the world are spending millions upon millions on cameras, it must be because there's some hard evidence that they work, right?

Except I didn't really find much. Sure, there are news anecdotes about criminals being convicted because of a camera or about a crime being stopped because police were alerted by the cameras. But the research - the research says cameras don't do much more than record every living second of whatever they're pointed at. 

Photo by Get Directly Down

For example, take this recent study of San Francisco's Community Safety Camera Program. The study found that the cameras had almost no effect on violent crime.

No effect whatsoever. Any mild effects that could be seen in front of the camera created a displacement effect. Criminals were smart enough to figure out that if you're going to murder someone, better to do it on the block that doesn't have the camera, rather than right in front of the blinking red light.

The study showed that the cameras had some effect on property crime, particularly larceny theft such as pickpocketing, purse snatching and theft from vehicles.

There was no decrease in drug offenses, prostitution or vandalism. And when they looked to see if places that had cameras were, overall, safer than they had been before they were installed? Well, the results were inconclusive.

Natalie Saffold, resident leader at LeClaire Courts, says she's actually seen gangs use the cameras to their advantage. One gang goes out and attacks their rivals and then stands in front of the camera, knowing that their enemies won't be able to seek retribution while the police are watching.

"If it helps keep the community safer, I'm for it. But LeClaire Courts has cameras up, and there's still crime there." says Natalie.

After talking to the right people and doing my research, I just started thinking and talking to people about security cameras and crime.

And there's one thing that still bothers me: Cameras assume that people commit crimes because they don't think they are going to get caught.

Is that the true motivation for crime? Are people just trying to see what they can get away with?

I'm not so sure. I think, often times, people steal because they need something. People join a gang because they want to belong. People sell drugs because it makes money. People use drugs because they're so addicted they can't stop. People hurt others and hurt themselves because they're reacting to the pain and hurt they can't get rid of.

Not everyone. Some people are bad eggs. Some people are serial killers and born psychopaths. Not every criminal is some sort of Jean Valjean, with a perfectly good reason for committing a crime.

But I think the motivation for crime is deeper. People know they could get caught, and they choose to do it anyway.

So why aren't we spending our money to get rid of the reasons why they do it in the first place?

Maybe a better solution is more well-trained police officers who are invested in communities. More social workers and teachers and pastors who care about kids. More safe places where kids can go and find somewhere they belong.

Samuel Mendenhall, who used to be a CHA commissioner and grew up in LeClaire Courts, used to talk about an officer who stopped him every day on his way home from school. Not because he was doing something bad, but to ask him how school was and whether he was studying hard.

He grew up to be an incredibly powerful lawyer, minister and father. Not just because of the cop, but because the cop was part of a community of people urging him to reach his potential.

And that's something a camera will never be able to do.

They may be sleek technology. They may be an easy answer. They might make some people sleep better at night. But are they really doing anything at all? And in a recession, when we're all trying to keep better track of where every penny goes, isn't $23 million too high a price for that sort of cheap trick?