In a message dated 5/29/2007 1:10:39 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
And back to the subject of cameras, there are many areas in our city that could benefit from having them. Complete article _Click here: The Crime Rate Drops, and a City Credits Its Embrace of Surveillance Technology - New York Times_ (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/29/nyregion/29east.html) Excerpted paragraphs. May 29, 2007 The Crime Rate Drops, and a City Credits Its Embrace of Surveillance Technology EAST ORANGE, N.J., May 28 — Detective Robert Harris starts patrolling the raw streets of this worn-down city before he even leaves the parking lot at Police Headquarters. After climbing into his patrol car last Thursday, Detective Harris flipped open his dashboard-mounted laptop computer and, with a few clicks, was able to access live images of the streets ahead from video surveillance cameras. A few more clicks, and he could view up-to-the-second police reports in this city of 70,000, which within the past half decade posted crime rates as high as twice the national average and where an average of five cars were reported stolen every day. And if that were not enough, electronic listening devices mounted around the city send an electronic signal to alert officers within seconds of a shooting. “This is something else,” Detective Harris, 30, said with a smile. The convergence of those technological crime-fighting tools is in large part the reason why police statistics show that the crime rate here has declined by more than 50 percent in the past three years, East Orange officials say.... Mr. Cordero has made a crackdown on so-called quality-of-life crimes a priority — the hope being that attention to relatively minor issues like loitering and curfew violations by youngsters will deter such infractions from evolving into more serious crimes. ************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com.