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Should Surveillance Cameras Detect Criminals, or Deter Crime

In the real world (with graffiti) and online (with spam), arrest and conviction don't always equal effective security

It can be argued that detection is actually counterproductive. The thief must be tried and put on probation. A tagger convicted in Boston last summer was fined $10,000 and had his license revoked, reducing his job prospects and increasing the likelihood he will need public assistance, use bad credit, resort to more crime or end up in jail, which also costs money.

Most confounding of all, detection, by definition, must allow the crime to start taking place. Otherwise there’s nothing to detect. Hidden cameras still allow paint to get on the wall, which happens to be by far the most expensive aspect of the graffiti problem—the cleanup. An average city spends about $2 per citizen yearly whitewashing graffiti; nationwide, yearly graffiti cleanup costs may be as high as $12 billion, according to Justice Department statistics reported by graffitihurts.org—a partnership between the nonprofit Keep America Beautiful and The Sherwin Williams Company, which makes Krylon spray paints.

Deterrence—creating an environment that’s inhospitable to the criminal act in the first place—on the other hand is a smarter, more efficient strategy than catching bad guys. If a detected tagger still leaves cleanup behind, a deterred tagger reduces cleanup costs to zero.

In fact, studies show that the most effective deterrent to tagging is immediate removal of new graffiti. If a city or town consistently removes graffiti within 24 to 48 hours of its application, repeat incidents at those spots approach zero.

This seems to indicate the money spent on hidden cameras could be put to better use developing graffiti SWAT teams that would swoop in and remove tags almost as soon as they dried.

When not cleaning up graffiti, the SWAT teams could perform precleaning—a systematic program of identifying the most likely targets for tagging and creating a deterrent by making them graffiti-unfriendly.

Engineering the Environment

A discipline exists called CPTED—criminal prevention through environmental design—under which studies have shown that space can be engineered to reduce the likelihood of criminal activity. A tagger who knows he’s being watched or who is made to feel exposed to detection through good lighting, signage or other methods is less likely to start tagging in the first place. Simply making surfaces darker or variegated, or covering them with coatings that alter surface lubricity so that they don’t take paint well also will reduce tagging.

In addition, taggers who are caught (you will never 100 percent deter a crime; it’s always about risk reduction, not risk elimination) could be spared large fines and jail time—penalties that do nothing to reduce graffiti and drain other resources. Instead, a more efficient penalty is to employ the busted tagger as part of a cleanup team. (Some judges already make graffiti artists clean up their own work.)