An eye in the sky
The North Edgewater Beach Association has decided to take community safety into its own hands by installing a privately-owned-and-monitored surveillance camera to help police catch the drug-dealers and prostitutes it says disrupt the neighborhood.
"We've seen pockets where they congregate and feel safe to do their business," said Norm Cratty, the NEBA president who has lived in Edgewater for 20 years.
The neighborhood is in the Chicago Police Department's 24th District. Commander Bruce Rottner says crime in the area has been going down in recent years, and decreased 10 percent in 2005 from the year before.
The real problem, he says, is loitering, which can lend to a perception of criminal activity. Rottner said the police cannot apprehend people who are simply loitering in a public space.
"When people don't feel safe, you can knock them over the head with all the statistics you want, and it won't make a difference," Rottner said.
Cratty said residents grew frustrated with criminal activity taking place on their streets -- even if the police couldn't see it. "We knew there was a criminal element going on, and if we could see it, we were surprised that the police weren't responding," Cratty said.
Mike Podpolucki, another NEBA member who installed and monitors the camera, said the nature of the criminal activity in North Edgewater made it difficult for the police to catch the perpetrators.
"The way things happen here, it all goes on in the background. So the moment the cops come . . . they all spread out, so it looks like nothing's happening," Podpolucki said.
NEBA members bought and installed a surveillance camera to monitor a street corner they say was plagued by drugs and prostitution. Over the weekend of April 1 and 2, the camera was mounted on a rental apartment building at 6101 N. Winthrop Ave.
Rae Ann Cecrle, who owns the building, helped pay for the camera and the surveillance equipment. She said she invested in the technology to protect her tenants and decrease the turnover in her building.
"My tenants seem to be very happy that we're addressing some of these issues," Cecrle said. "I've had tenants tell me they were going to leave because they couldn't take [the crime]."
Cecrle said the first camera and the surveillance equipment cost about $4,500, and each additional camera will cost $700 to $900.
"Technology [is] much more affordable than it was 10 to 15 years ago," Cratty said.
The group plans to install at least two more cameras soon.
The security camera patrols the intersection of Winthrop and Glenlake Avenues using eight programmable presets. It can zoom up to 21 times and has focus and motion-sensing capabilities. NEBA also created a control room, with a digital video recorder and a local area network. Podpolucki currently monitors the video, but will be training other NEBA members to do the job.
NEBA created an incident reporting form on its Web site, where residents can submit complaints about drugs, prostitution or other criminal activity. Podpolucki reviews the video based on incidents reported online or otherwise. He said about 10 incidents were reported since the camera was installed.
The camera also can be monitored remotely from a home computer. "If I happen to be monitoring, and I see something, I record it," Podpolucki said.
After Podpolucki reviews reported incidents, he burns the video to a DVD and gives it to police for further investigation. He said the videos are archived for two to three weeks and then destroyed.
Podpolucki said police have used video from the NEBA camera to investigate at least three incidents, including an assault, a murder and a drug sale. Rottner said his police force supports NEBA's surveillance efforts, and he can monitor the video from his desk.
"There have been a million studies that have shown that the more people are involved in their communities, the more crime goes down," Rottner said.
Cratty, Cecrle and Podpolucki all said residents have reacted positively to the surveillance camera. NEBA members and residents are hopeful that the presence of the cameras will steer would-be criminals from their community.
"There's a certain element here that's not happy to see these cameras," Cratty said. "They've been put on notice that this activity is not going to be tolerated."
But while the presence of resident-monitored surveillance cameras may give some people in Edgewater an increased sense of security, it also raises questions about privacy and civil liberties.
"The courts, when they have looked at these questions, have found that we don't have an expectation of privacy in public," said Ed Yohnka, director of communications for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois.
A surveillance camera directed at a public intersection is legal, but when it is controlled by private citizens instead of trained law enforcement officials, it pushes the issue of spying into a whole new arena.
"There's an overarching question of where we're going with this, of who's controlling [the cameras]," Yohnka said. "I think what's troubling is we're not wrestling with these questions. There's just this assumption that this is the way to go."
Privacy law attorney Charles Lee Mudd Jr., president of Mudd Law Offices in Chicago, said surveillance cameras monitored by private individuals is a slippery slope that could potentially lead to an erosion of privacy rights and intrusion lawsuits that could expose the camera operators to liability.
Mudd said that privacy law is complex, and people operating surveillance cameras need to be aware of its boundaries.
For example, recording someone walking down a public street is legal, Mudd said, but recording what someone does in his own car could be illegal in some instances, and using a surveillance camera to peer into a private home would be illegal under any circumstance.
Mudd also said the range of the camera could pick up footage unintentionally. He said if someone installs a camera in his own backyard, but half of the view is on his neighbor's yard, that could be an illegal intrusion.
"When you have law enforcement [monitoring surveillance video], they know what the line is. When you have a neighborhood association doing it, they may not know that line," Mudd said. "A neighborhood association might be saying that it's for the public interest, but they are not law enforcement, and there's no oversight as to what they're doing with their tapes."
Mudd also cautioned that these risks will increase as technology finds its way into the hands of more people.
Podpolucki said four other property owners have expressed an interest in installing surveillance systems similar to NEBA's. None of the owners was available for comment.
Critics say if individually operated surveillance technology continues to grow, Americans' right to privacy could be in serious jeopardy.
"That really could turn into a '1984' situation very quickly," Mudd cautioned, referring to the George Orwell novel about the dangers of a totalitarian society.
For now, the question of whether video surveillance actually reduces crime remains..
Yohnka said crime rates vary more with fluctuations in the economy and the number of 18- to 24-year-old males in the community than it does the with the use of surveillance cameras.
"I know that in many cities, there are claims about the degree to which they curtail crime. But the actual evidence is somewhat mixed," Yohnka said. "London is the most surveilled city in the world, and cameras there do not have the effect of stopping crime -- they simply move it to a different area."
Indeed, since the NEBA camera was installed at Winthrop and Glenlake Avenues, Rottner said crime has now moved to an alley between Winthrop and Kenmore Avenues.
Brian Weber, who has been living in Cecrle's building for nine years, believes the camera will help reduce crime but still has some reservations about the broader issue of surveillance.
"Everything seems to be going more and more to Big Brother," he said. "When it comes to safety, it's nice to know it's there. But you just have to wonder what extent it's going to."
"We've seen pockets where they congregate and feel safe to do their business," said Norm Cratty, the NEBA president who has lived in Edgewater for 20 years.
The neighborhood is in the Chicago Police Department's 24th District. Commander Bruce Rottner says crime in the area has been going down in recent years, and decreased 10 percent in 2005 from the year before.
The real problem, he says, is loitering, which can lend to a perception of criminal activity. Rottner said the police cannot apprehend people who are simply loitering in a public space.
"When people don't feel safe, you can knock them over the head with all the statistics you want, and it won't make a difference," Rottner said.
Cratty said residents grew frustrated with criminal activity taking place on their streets -- even if the police couldn't see it. "We knew there was a criminal element going on, and if we could see it, we were surprised that the police weren't responding," Cratty said.
Mike Podpolucki, another NEBA member who installed and monitors the camera, said the nature of the criminal activity in North Edgewater made it difficult for the police to catch the perpetrators.
"The way things happen here, it all goes on in the background. So the moment the cops come . . . they all spread out, so it looks like nothing's happening," Podpolucki said.
NEBA members bought and installed a surveillance camera to monitor a street corner they say was plagued by drugs and prostitution. Over the weekend of April 1 and 2, the camera was mounted on a rental apartment building at 6101 N. Winthrop Ave.
Rae Ann Cecrle, who owns the building, helped pay for the camera and the surveillance equipment. She said she invested in the technology to protect her tenants and decrease the turnover in her building.
"My tenants seem to be very happy that we're addressing some of these issues," Cecrle said. "I've had tenants tell me they were going to leave because they couldn't take [the crime]."
Cecrle said the first camera and the surveillance equipment cost about $4,500, and each additional camera will cost $700 to $900.
"Technology [is] much more affordable than it was 10 to 15 years ago," Cratty said.
The group plans to install at least two more cameras soon.
The security camera patrols the intersection of Winthrop and Glenlake Avenues using eight programmable presets. It can zoom up to 21 times and has focus and motion-sensing capabilities. NEBA also created a control room, with a digital video recorder and a local area network. Podpolucki currently monitors the video, but will be training other NEBA members to do the job.
NEBA created an incident reporting form on its Web site, where residents can submit complaints about drugs, prostitution or other criminal activity. Podpolucki reviews the video based on incidents reported online or otherwise. He said about 10 incidents were reported since the camera was installed.
The camera also can be monitored remotely from a home computer. "If I happen to be monitoring, and I see something, I record it," Podpolucki said.
After Podpolucki reviews reported incidents, he burns the video to a DVD and gives it to police for further investigation. He said the videos are archived for two to three weeks and then destroyed.
Podpolucki said police have used video from the NEBA camera to investigate at least three incidents, including an assault, a murder and a drug sale. Rottner said his police force supports NEBA's surveillance efforts, and he can monitor the video from his desk.
"There have been a million studies that have shown that the more people are involved in their communities, the more crime goes down," Rottner said.
Cratty, Cecrle and Podpolucki all said residents have reacted positively to the surveillance camera. NEBA members and residents are hopeful that the presence of the cameras will steer would-be criminals from their community.
"There's a certain element here that's not happy to see these cameras," Cratty said. "They've been put on notice that this activity is not going to be tolerated."
But while the presence of resident-monitored surveillance cameras may give some people in Edgewater an increased sense of security, it also raises questions about privacy and civil liberties.
"The courts, when they have looked at these questions, have found that we don't have an expectation of privacy in public," said Ed Yohnka, director of communications for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois.
A surveillance camera directed at a public intersection is legal, but when it is controlled by private citizens instead of trained law enforcement officials, it pushes the issue of spying into a whole new arena.
"There's an overarching question of where we're going with this, of who's controlling [the cameras]," Yohnka said. "I think what's troubling is we're not wrestling with these questions. There's just this assumption that this is the way to go."
Privacy law attorney Charles Lee Mudd Jr., president of Mudd Law Offices in Chicago, said surveillance cameras monitored by private individuals is a slippery slope that could potentially lead to an erosion of privacy rights and intrusion lawsuits that could expose the camera operators to liability.
Mudd said that privacy law is complex, and people operating surveillance cameras need to be aware of its boundaries.
For example, recording someone walking down a public street is legal, Mudd said, but recording what someone does in his own car could be illegal in some instances, and using a surveillance camera to peer into a private home would be illegal under any circumstance.
Mudd also said the range of the camera could pick up footage unintentionally. He said if someone installs a camera in his own backyard, but half of the view is on his neighbor's yard, that could be an illegal intrusion.
"When you have law enforcement [monitoring surveillance video], they know what the line is. When you have a neighborhood association doing it, they may not know that line," Mudd said. "A neighborhood association might be saying that it's for the public interest, but they are not law enforcement, and there's no oversight as to what they're doing with their tapes."
Mudd also cautioned that these risks will increase as technology finds its way into the hands of more people.
Podpolucki said four other property owners have expressed an interest in installing surveillance systems similar to NEBA's. None of the owners was available for comment.
Critics say if individually operated surveillance technology continues to grow, Americans' right to privacy could be in serious jeopardy.
"That really could turn into a '1984' situation very quickly," Mudd cautioned, referring to the George Orwell novel about the dangers of a totalitarian society.
For now, the question of whether video surveillance actually reduces crime remains..
Yohnka said crime rates vary more with fluctuations in the economy and the number of 18- to 24-year-old males in the community than it does the with the use of surveillance cameras.
"I know that in many cities, there are claims about the degree to which they curtail crime. But the actual evidence is somewhat mixed," Yohnka said. "London is the most surveilled city in the world, and cameras there do not have the effect of stopping crime -- they simply move it to a different area."
Indeed, since the NEBA camera was installed at Winthrop and Glenlake Avenues, Rottner said crime has now moved to an alley between Winthrop and Kenmore Avenues.
Brian Weber, who has been living in Cecrle's building for nine years, believes the camera will help reduce crime but still has some reservations about the broader issue of surveillance.
"Everything seems to be going more and more to Big Brother," he said. "When it comes to safety, it's nice to know it's there. But you just have to wonder what extent it's going to."
Tagged: Edgewater
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