Some of the monitors display video footage from the hundreds of cameras stationed at various housing developments across Newark -- more cameras than the next biggest housing authorities in Jersey City and Paterson, which have 130 and 158, respectively.

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Surveillance cameras at Newark public housing credited with reducing crime

by Sharon Adarlo and Ralph R. Ortega
The Star-Ledger
Monday September 14, 200

NEWARK -- Before surveillance cameras came to the Newark public housing complex on Grafton Avenue, the parking lot was like a fast food joint with customers in their cars lined up into the street waiting to get served. But they weren't buying burgers.

The commodity was drugs -- a group of dealers would gather near the entrance as people drove up, made their buy, and then sped away. The drug dealers also crowded the central courtyard, used the mailhouses to stash their drugs, and intimidated residents who were afraid to leave their homes.


A Newark Housing Authority contract security officer operares the authority's video surveillance system in their technology center. Comprised of hundreds of cameras mounted in public areas throughout the city, the program is being touted as a major factor in the reduction of crime in those areas.

But that was before help came last year in the form of approximately 700 cameras that peer from the tops of roofs, poles and hallways as they keep watch 24 hours a day, seven days a week, on 10,000 city residents at 27 housing complexes.

On Riverside Villa, the scene of the drug drive-through, children now walk and play in the parking lot and the courtyard.

Cameras also have kept them away from Pennington Court on South Street, where drug dealers made open-air transactions in the large courtyard, and at Kretchmer, a high-rise development for seniors, where prostitutes turned tricks in the stairwells and crack junkies defecated in the hallways.

"I believe security starts at the home," said Keith Kinard, executive director of the housing authority, who started the security improvements in 2007. "But the more that we can build entrance ways that are safe and secure, courtyards that are safe and secure, it all of a sudden creates neighborhoods that are safe and secure."

At the Broad Street headquarters of the city's housing authority, the security-operations room looks like a scene from NASA's control center -- flat-screen monitors flicker on a wall as uniformed clerks sit at desks, flicking away at small joysticks as they peer at computer screens.

Some of the monitors display video footage from the hundreds of cameras stationed at various housing developments across Newark -- more cameras than the next biggest housing authorities in Jersey City and Paterson, which have 130 and 158, respectively.

Kinard said he started the sophisticated surveillance program after residents complained of their buildings being overrun by vagrants while some guards were nowhere to be found.

"It was a free-for-all. You had open access into the buildings," Kinard said.

To combat problems and save money in the long run, Kinard said the agency decided to fire its security force of 26 special police officers and 85 security guards and pay for a one-time $5 million investment in surveillance equipment to replace the shoddy cameras that relied on VHS tapes. Officials also hired Winfield, a Bloomfield-based security firm, to monitor the building lobbies and tapped the city police department to patrol buildings.

When the cameras were installed at the housing complexes, they proved to be effective, he said. Last year in July, cameras caught a group of people attacking a resident in the hallway of a Frelinghuysen Avenue building, almost beating the man into a coma, Kinard said. At the time, there were no security operators, but police arrested the attackers after they saw blood in the hallway and reviewed the video.

There are also visible changes in how the different housing complexes, from Riverside Villa to Kretchmer, look now, Kinard said. People feel safe to sit outside and not get bothered by drug dealers.

"The residents were so relieved," Kinard said. "This is a prime example of how cameras literally move people."

Currently, the housing authority oversees around 8,000 units with half under surveillance, Kinard said. In six months, 80 percent will have cameras as the agency adds 100 to 200 more eyes.

The housing agency doesn't keep track of crime numbers, but Kinard said the number of safety complaints has fallen from 150 to 200 a month to fewer than 20 now.

The city agency is not the only housing authority to have adopted cameras. Housing authorities in cities of similar size have installed cameras -- Oakland, Calif., has 30 and Pittsburgh, Pa., which Kinard previously ran, has 220.

Chicago recently announced more than 3,000 cameras will be installed at housing authority properties.

Critics have questioned whether these cameras are cost-effective and if they actually deter crime.

"It's too much mass surveillance," said Mike German, the policy counsel for the national ACLU. "Anything that collects tons of information of the innocent doesn't make it easier to find guilty people. It's really expensive and resource-intensive. It takes police officers off streets, puts them behind monitors, makes them less effective."

Jeff Roush, a government consultant who has done research on surveillance cameras, said 44 research reports from the United Kingdom have concluded that publicly operated cameras, which can cost from $10,000 to $25,000 each, are not effective in deterring violent crime.

However, in parking lots, there is some evidence they can deter car break-ins and car theft, and they can help police identify violent criminals and help convict them if the image quality is good enough, Roush said. But as for deterring violent crime, he said, there is no evidence they can, and most government-operated cameras are only good for monitoring street traffic.

Some residents of Newark's housing authority said they are chafing under the constant surveillance.

Sharn Whitehead, 52, who lives at Riverside Villa, said the cameras are intrusive.

"This is a disrespect to have cameras when you sit on the front of your house," Whitehead said of how uncomfortable she is when she is outside. She also pointed out that nearly all the buildings at the complex have cameras that are housed in a black plastic casing hanging from a post.

Dolores Patterson, another Riverside resident, agreed.

"The cameras are invading your privacy because it gets into your house," she said about her fear that the equipment's powerful zoom feature can peer inside her home when her front door is open.

But Beverly Dobbins said the housing complex is safer because there isn't as much violence and shootings, she said.

"It was quite a bit of drug action but that has ceased," she said. "It (cameras) made it better."

Kinard said they have received favorable comments from people who are pleased with the new security features.

"I haven't received one complaint about privacy issues or overuse of cameras," he said. "That's not to say somebody might be upset. But instead, what I get is, 'Thank you. Thank, God. These guys finally moved after seven years from my front stoop," a woman at Riverside Villa told me. "These guys finally moved after seven years from my front stoop, where they were selling drugs for seven years.' "

To allay any privacy concerns, Kinard said they have trained operators to not violate residents' privacy. Another precaution housing officials took was to install cameras to watch the guards.

"They have a camera on them while they do their job, and they know that everything that they view is tracked and coded as you're viewing it," said Tory Gunsolley, the chief administrative officer for the housing authority. "So if one the operators violated somebody's privacy, their supervisors would know it and it's recorded."

Kinard said he has heard the term "Big Brother" attached to the cameras at the housing developments, but he did not shy away from it.

"If it has to do with result of lowering crime and making residents feel safe, I will wear that badge, that's how I feel," he said.