Nov 26, 2014

When it comes to law enforcement, there’s only so many places a police officer can be at once. Even the most robust police force in the world can’t respond to every call with the speed it would require to, say, stop a crime in progress. After all, police officers are only human. But what if there were a solution that could supplement human officers and provide an indispensable tool in the realm of law enforcement? Fortunately, that tool exists, and it’s called wireless surveillance security.

A proven track record of success
Los Angeles has one of the most expansive police forces out there, with 9,400 men and women in uniform hitting the streets of the city everyday, according to an industry report. But just as LA’s police force is large, so is the sphere of activity it has to deal with. All told, LA encompasses 465 square miles. Now that’s a lot of ground to cover. As with most big cities, in LA there are certain neighborhoods where crime occurs at a statistically higher rate than others. When it comes to protecting these areas, sometimes a larger and more detail-oriented police presence is needed. But in LA, when it came to safeguarding one such area, the city turned to a better resource.

Watts, on the city’s lower east side, is an area of LA that deals with statistically higher crime rates than other areas in the city. Within that neighborhood, there’s a 700-unit public housing development called Jordan Downs. For the LAPD, dealing with the rampant crime in this particular development was becoming problematic, and residents of Jordan Downs were also apparently voicing concerns that their living situation wasn’t as safe as it should be. The LAPD decided it needed to implement a proactive response strategy.

“We made a promise to the residents of the Jordan Downs community to increase police monitoring services and decrease crime and gang activity,” said Antonio Villaraigosa, who was LA’s mayor at the time.

As Charlie Beck, who’s now chief of the LAPD, pointed out, devices like monitoring equipment offer police the ultimate tool to provide the best possible protection for citizens.

“Technology is an important way a small police department with a big job, like LAPD, has any chance of providing public safety,” Beck said.

The installation
In order to address the crime problem in and around Jordan Downs, the LAPD set up a wireless surveillance system that transmitted live video feeds from around the public housing development to police. Because the cameras were strategically placed in areas that had been identified as critical, police officers suddenly had important access to the kind of information that could help stop crime in its tracks. And that’s exactly what happened.

Thanks in large part to the rolling out of the LAPD’s Jordan Downs wireless surveillance effort, crime in the housing development dropped by 40 percent. This remarkable decrease in crime can be significantly attributed to the proactive policing enabled by advanced surveillance technology. Here are some of the key benefits police departments reap thanks to wireless surveillance:

• Better officer safety: If officers have a clear idea based on video feeds of the scene they’re driving to, they’ll be better equipped to deal with it at less personal risk.
• Makes criminals think twice: When you announce a wireless surveillance program in a high-crime area, that immediately gives people committing crimes pause.
• A boost on police power: Again, police officers can’t be everywhere at once. But cameras can be – and that’s exactly why they’re a police officer’s best friend when it comes to maintaining optimal productivity.

In order to provide the best surveillance possible, check out a Firetide solution.