Most cities have always had their tougher neighborhoods where crime is much more prevalent. These kinds of areas are notoriously hard to clean up and police properly, often making them harmful with criminal activity running high. This is the story of one city which was actually able to clean up a number of it’s worst neighborhoods and how security cameras helped them do it. In Newerk New Jersey, there are been some neighborhoods where crime continues to be running rampant for years.

One housing complex had lines of cars backing up on to the street, while groups drug dealers would gather near the complex’s entrance and ply their wares like a drive-through fast food location. In another close by housing development drug dealers took over the courtyard, doing their company right in front of the intimidated residence. At a high rise development for seniors that’s also in the region, drug addicts defecated in the corridors and prostitutes turned tricks in the stairways.

Then in 2007 the housing authority of Newark began the installation of approximately seven hundred surveillance cameras so far, plus they have plans to add another one to two hundred more cameras to the system. These cameras are mounted in hallways, on rooftops also as on poles located through out the city, all of those are monitored at the housing authority’s central office twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.

Soon after the surveillance cameras had been installed, they began to show positive outcomes. In July, a group of individuals had been caught in the act of viciously beating a man in the hallway of an apartment building by the cameras. The local cops had been impressed with the high quality of the video which was captured and arrested the entire group after they reviewed the footage which was recorded.

There have also been other changes because the security cameras had been installed, the local populace is not intimidated by the criminal elements within their neighborhoods. Children now walk and play in the region that had a line of cars waiting to purchase drugs not that long ago the ones now really feel safe enough to sit outside their homes without having to be harassed by drug dealers.

The housing authority of Newerk doesn’t keep tabs on crime statistics, but one official asserted the number of safety complaints dropped from about 2 hundred per month to fewer then 20 in the same time span. Newerk isn’t the only city to utilize this valuable tool for cleaning up our streets, the housing authorities of many other cities are after this example and enjoying similar outcomes. With the crime rate rising all across our nation, it’s a relief to finally have the means to fight back.

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