By Dakshana Bascaramurty
As city council considers installing surveillance cameras on Rideau Street, Centretown residents and business owners are already pondering how the decision might affect their neighbourhood.
Supporters are calling for cameras down Bank Street as well and say surveillance will deter crime and encourage residents to go out at night. But opponents question how effective the system will be and suggest it may displace crime to Centretown, instead of stopping it – if it even works at all.
The city’s transit committee tabled a report recommending the installation of closed circuit television (CCTV) surveillance at the north end of the Rideau Centre on March 21. The next step is a vote on the proposal at city council in the upcoming weeks, says Barre Campbell, a city spokesperson.
“We find condoms in our gardens, needles in our parks. At two o’clock in the morning, you’ll hear some strung-out prostitute screaming that she needs crack,” says Stephanie Strudwick, co-ordinator with Centretown’s Neighbourhood Watch Program.
Strudwick says she not only wants the cameras installed in front of the Rideau Centre, but also at the pedestrian underpass on Sussex Drive and Wellington Street, and on Bank Street between Somerset Street West and Gilmour. She says more support is needed from the community before a proposal for CCTV in Centretown can be made.
A trip to Hamilton inspired Strudwick’s support of CCTV. She says she was struck by the cleanliness of the downtown mall area and the absence of panhandlers. She contacted a Hamilton city councillor and learned that CCTV had been operating for two years.
Strudwick says she was told robberies and assaults had declined in the area by 29 per cent since the cameras’ installation.
But it is hasty to credit CCTV for a dip in Hamilton’s crime rate, says Kevin Walby, a Carleton University PhD student who has studied CCTV for three years.
“If police feel they need a way to legitimate themselves, they can always tinker with the numbers,” he says. “If the crime rates go down, it could be for a wide range of other reasons.”
Sometimes crime is displaced rather than eliminated, says Ottawa Police Const. Steven Desjourdy. “You can close x-amount of drug houses, but if you have people that are dependent on that, they might just show up in other places,” he says.
Walby says he analyzed CCTV initiatives in Sudbury, London and Hamilton and was not convinced the investment was wise.
The projected cost for such a system in Peterborough is $85,000 for the cameras and $400,000 for monitoring and maintenance, says Walby.
In Winnipeg, a city closer to Ottawa’s size, it would be $1.2 million.
Even if the system is expensive and crime migrates to Centretown, business owner Umed Behruz says he supports CCTV.
Behruz manages the Second Cup coffee shop at Bank Street and Somerset Street West, one of the spots where Strudwick recommended installing cameras. He says Rideau Street is a good starting place.
Strudwick says Bank Street and Somerset Street West needs surveillance because Hartman’s Your Independent Grocer attracts many beggars, especially in April when the weather gets warmer. She says the intersection is also a hub for drug deals, which Behruz also lists as a problem.
“I’m here, I work all the time. I see drug deals right in front of my store during the middle of the day,” he says.
Rideau-Vanier Ward Coun. Georges Bédard says he supports CCTV in areas with increased criminal activity.
But Walby says money for the CCTV system should instead be spent on maintaining homeless shelters and outreach programs.
“It would be a much more humane way to go about it. Instead, they want to use the technological fix.”