The Urban Institute, a research institute focused on public policy and government and initiated by President Johnson, released a report last week evaluating the impact of video surveillance cameras on crime control and crime prevention.
The abstract of the report, titled “Evaluating the Use of Public Surveillance Cameras for Crime Control and Prevention” is as follows:
“This report summarizes the results of an evaluation of public surveillance systems in Baltimore, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., examining how systems in each of these jurisdictions were selected and implemented and assessing the degree to which they achieved their intended crime prevention impact. The study also explored whether surveillance cameras displaced crime or yielded a diffusion of benefits to areas just beyond the cameras reach, and included a cost-benefit analysis component in two of the three study sites. Findings indicate that in places where cameras were sufficiently concentrated and routinely monitored by trained staff, the impact on crime was significant and cost-beneficial, with no evidence of crime displacement.”
The Urban Institute has published the entire research in PDF format, available for download here.
