Eye See You

THE CITY'S ROBOT EYES DAMPEN CRIME

An ounce of prevention, they say, is worth a pound of cure. That is one of the motivations for the city's array of some 45 cameras aimed at ferreting out crime - or better yet, deterring it.

"When I got here a little over 2 and a half years ago, the city was concerned about high levels of car break-ins and robberies," says Frank Fernandez, the assistant city manager in charge of public safety. "The city manager asked me to put together a comprehensive crime prevention plan." High on the wish list was a technology upgrade, including a web of cameras to detect criminal activity.

At a cost of about $1.5 million, the city installed 15 LPRs (license plate readers) to track cars that entered the city, and another 30 CCTs (closed-circuit TV cameras) to keep watch on high-crime areas.

The LPRs have created what Fernandez calls a "geo fence" around the city, "so that theoretically we know what is coming in and what is coming out." While especially good at flagging stolen cars, since installation the LPRs have led to a couple of high-profile busts. One was in February, when they caught the plate of a homicide suspect who had fled New England. He was 'tagged' on U.S. 1 heading south, where county cops – alerted by the Gables – apprehended him.

More pervasive have been the city's 30 CCT cameras, dubbed the "Eye in the Sky." These are placed in high crime areas, or areas where public safety needs to be enhanced.

In terms of public safety, the CCTs can film a public area and, with analytic software at the city's IT center, search for variables – like blue jackets, or tall men with blond hair. They can also go back in time and scan for objects, or look for something in the present, like a backpack left in a public square.

On the prevention front, the results have been dramatic. On U.S. 1, the parking lots behind Denny's and the Shake Shack were plagued with high levels of auto break-ins.

"We put cameras there and the break-ins stopped," says Fernandez. "They provided deterrence, so much so that we've had almost no crime on U.S. 1 in about a year." And the cherry on top? With the new technology, "There's no downtime, no complaints, no overtime, they are always reliable and on the job 24/7," says Fernandez.