Government

San Diego PD Steps Up Surveillance with Sony IPELA Cameras

After Budget Crisis, IP-Based Surveillance Helps Officers Target Quality-of-Life Crimes

SAN DIEGO (ASIS, Booth #1928), Sept. 25, 2006 - San Diego's budget crisis has left the city's police department struggling to find ways to do more with fewer resources.

Now, through the help of private individuals and institutions trying to improve public services, the city is using Sony IPELA® SNC-RZ30N cameras in a pilot project targeting the quality-of-life crimes plaguing the City Heights area for decades.

Before, enforcing these types of laws, crime was a challenge because the investigations took so much time, said City Heights officials.

But now, IP-based video technology affords the police with the time to spend on other issues, while the cameras gather evidence to prosecute these quality-of-life crimes, city officials added.

"The IPELA cameras are like another tool on an officer's workbelt," said Steven Rosenbloom, mid-city division prosecution officer with the San Diego Police Department. "They give us what we need to enforce laws that are difficult to otherwise. The City Heights area has been a problem for generations and nothing has proven to be very effective other than bringing a large number of officers to bear down consistently. Now we are able to create a virtual presence to achieve the same results through a more efficient deployment of personnel."

New Strategies to Address the Oldest Profession

Since the onset of San Diego's fiscal crisis two years ago, the number of vice squad detectives pursuing quality-of-life crimes, such as prostitution and street robberies, has dropped from 30 to 1. Along with the drop in manpower, Rosenbloom said that arrests have fallen to a small fraction of what they were. With these quality-of-life crimes unchecked, local businesses and residents have suffered as the neighborhood declined into urban blight, Rosenbloom added.

In this deteriorating situation, Rosenbloom said he was given the task of eliminating the prostitution that had taken over whole blocks. He was assigned to work with the city attorney to craft a practical solution, his challenge being to find a way to make the laws work. To make a charge of loitering with the intent to commit prostitution stick, Rosenbloom said, police need to document the easily recognizable behavior for at least 20 minutes.

"We have great laws to combat the problem.the catch is that you need to have enough officers to watch," Rosenbloom said. "Remote surveillance via IP-connected cameras is an ideal way to leverage our resources to do just that."

Added IP "Manpower"

Rosenbloom said he knew an IP-based surveillance system could help him accomplish his assignment. The question was where to find the best technology and how to pay for it.

On the technical side, latency seemed to be a problem with many of the systems he investigated. Then, Rosenbloom said he discovered that San Diego-based Dotworkz, an IP security integrator, had broken through to deliver imaging in real-time. They laid out what was needed to cover El Cajon Boulevard and University Avenue, which had become rife with quality-of-life crimes, along with ways to start small and work towards building out the complete system.

"IPELA systems have proven themselves time and again as a force multiplier for law enforcement," said Will Ferris, Dotworkz's president. "The Sony SNC-RZ30N cameras are cost-effective workhorses, and connecting them via wireless using our mesh implementation cuts installation costs to a degree unimaginable in the analog era. We were able to design a system that could start small, spark support and generate success along the way to drive it to completion."

Rosenbloom said the pilot project began this summer with $70,000 to deploy three cameras linked to a video server running ONSSI's Net DVMS command and control system. Early indications of community approval are the additional funding being offered to follow through with the full implementation at a cost of approximately $400,000.

"The pilot project showed the community what this could do, and so we're well on the way to bringing this forward with donated funding," Rosenbloom said. "No one thinks that these systems are a replacement for officers, but they do give officers a new way to stretch out the long arm of the law."



Editor's Note: For more detailed product information, visit sony.com/security. To find the nearest Sony authorized dealer or service location, call 1-800-686-SONY. For additional press information and digital images, please visit Sony Electronics' news and information web site at sony.com/news.