Re: Murder in the VLA
The scenario of witnessing violent crime and witnesses being fearful of providing information to help prosecute the guilty is an all too common scenario in gang-related crimes. This is a burden that should not be on the shoulders of our general population, especially when a practical alternative exist - public street cameras (CCTV).
Privacy issues aside, a well-distributed camera system in the VLA could provide a level of deterrence that would be much more significant than just police presence alone.
The United Kingdom piloted a project such as this, and according to an internal police report published by the BBC, has shown that approximately "70 per cent of murder investigations had been solved with the assistance of CCTV retrievals." The English camera systems are not a perfect solution, however, the police report showed CCTV systems did not have a significant impact on impulsive crime such as public intoxication.
The report did show an impact on premeditated crimes such as murder and robbery.
Given the current state of affairs in our town, we should be thankful that Prince George isn't as bad as the Mexican border city of Juarez, which has an average murder rate of 130 per 100,000 people. Juarez wasn't always the murder capital of the world, once it was just a city with a small drug problem.
Sound familiar?
Another added benefit of putting CCTV in the VLA would be the aggregated CCTV footage could be combed to provide pedestrian traffic data to isolate potential crack houses, and shut them down.
Leveraging the power of a CCTV system with better drug-policies (decriminalization of cannabis) and effective rehabilitation programs would give us a huge advantage in the fight against organized crime and drug related violence.
This is a community problem and it requires a community-wide solution.
Andrew Tejero
Prince George
