Last Updated on: 12th March 2014, 04:32 pm
A new study on the effectiveness of security cameras in San Francisco has come to the obvious conclusion that, no, the things do not in fact work. The only thing accomplished by the spying is that some of the crime that used to take place in camera range now takes place a few hundred feet away, out of range of the cameras. Even funnier is that this mostly applies to murders, while rates of various types of theft were largely unchanged.
But leave it to politicians to come up with a reason why we not only need the existing cameras, but should go ahead and install a few more.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom says that in spite of the report, the cameras are a good idea because even though they don’t really do shit, they, wait for it, make people feel safer.
“When I put the first cameras in, I said, ‘This may only move people around the corner,’ ” he said. “But the community there said, ‘We don’t care, we want our alleyway back.’ No one’s actually had a camera up that they wanted torn down in the community.”
Ug.
With leadership like this, is it any wonder why the
story
also notes that the city is facing one of the largest budget deficits its had in a number of years?