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Newark Gets It Together in Response to Homicides; New Orleans, Not So Much
The Newark mayor's office has raised more than $3 million for a state-of-the-art surveillance system within days of the slaying of three college students. The homicides, which brought the 2007 citywide total up to 60, inspired political foes to make friends and corporations to make donations, all in the name of mitigating the alarming levels of violence in their city.
Meanwhile, no such strides have been made in New Orleans, where in the first four days of this year, seven people were murdered. By Saint Patrick's Day, 37. With less than half of the city's population around, the odds of getting killed in New Orleans made it the deadliest city in America.
A few months after I moved out of New Orleans last year, someone was shot with an assault rifle on the very corner on which I stood waiting for the bus every day. Hopefully the situation in Newark will inspire a certain mayor's office on the Gulf Coast, too, in a city in which there have been twice as many murders—literally, 120 so far this year—among a population less tens of thousands. Hopefully it'll happen soon, before more good and desperately needed New Orleanians, evacuating from a different kind of threat, move out.
Surveillance? To stop homicide? How would that work? How many homicides in Newark would have been deterred by the system to be put in place? Most likely, none. The UK experience, where they have made extensive use of surveillance, is that it does not make a long-term impact, and has it's greatest effect *before* the cameras are installed (but when the publicity about the new cameras is at it's highest).
Oh, the logical arguments are OVERWHELMINGLY in favor of surveillance.
I mean, murder was virtually unknown in Orwell's "1984". Well.., except for murder at the hands of Big Brother.
Nah. Gangbangers and other hard-cases intent on defeating a PUBLIC camera system will do it easily.
Mask. Floppy hat. Bulky clothing. That'll probably work for those who plan to do their dirtywork where a camera might catch it. Or they'll just wait for an off-camera moment, because it won't take long for those who wish to avoid cameras to learn their locations.
Unless they're planning on putting cameras into every bedroom, living room, bathroom, storeroom and pool room in the city, it'll have no effect at all on murders committed indoors.
Personally, it doesn't give me a warm & fuzzy feeling to know that government might be watching me at any time, or all the time.
Gives me just the opposite, in fact, because I've read a bit of history and I have a good idea how often government policies sold to the public with the best of intentions, and with "your best interests in mind" have later been turned on the innocent.
P.S.: IMHO, this is just another case of politicians feeling the need to "Do Something" about a problem, and do something very VISIBLE, whether that "something" approaches a real solution to a problem or not.
Next election they can talk about how they "Did Something", and how they were "Tough On Crime".
The question of whether the citizens were spared of one single crime by virtue of their $3 Million (just the initial cost, I'm sure) "Something" will probably never be asked.
It's either drug treatment programs on demand, inner city recreation centers and youth employment or LAPD gangbusting, Brazilian-style death squads if you want to lower our urban murder rates. It's a vote for the Dutch or Norwegian social services model or a vote for Blackwater Security and Rhodesian mercs. What turns you on most?
We won't get rid of drug gangs and turf wars until we take the profit out of the illegal drug traffic.
The solution would be simple.
Getting the politicians to admit they've been pursuing a stupid, failing course for 70 years, and then reverse that course would not be.