Monitoring your every move - Hopkins isn't the only area of B'more installing security cameras

Johns Hopkins' Homewood campus and a thirteen block stretch of Monument Street in East Baltimore have little in common.

The former shows off marble colonnades and manicured landscaping, the latter is an urban marketplace where fatback remains a popular mainstay at Mike's Meat and Poultry, and Connie and the rest of the staff at Monument Beauty Supplies have a rush on mannequin heads come Christmas.

Yet by this June, the two will begin to share an important common asset: they will both be overseen, twenty-four hours a day, by electronic security cameras.

For Johns Hopkins, the move towards electronic surveillance has been a decisive part of the security plan drafted in the wake of the murder of undergraduate Linda Trinh in her Charles Village apartment late last year. For East Monument Street, the cameras are a part of a plan to deter drug crime in the area and encourage potential shoppers.

Monument Street is hoping that the cameras will make all the difference in their new image. Joe Arlang owns Alpha Gold, a family business which has flourished in the area for fifteen years. He has watched the retreat of store owners from the abandoned rowhouses and sporadic gunshots that characterize much of the surrounding neighborhood, secure in his knowledge that Monument Street can weather the changes and come out the better for it. The security cameras, which will be installed with city funds and monitored by Baltimore City police officers and neighborhood volunteers, are an encouraging step towards "getting rid of street dealing permanently."

To Arlang, the fact that "the bad boys will look up and see that we can see what they're doing" makes all the difference. He knows he'll be tied to the business until he retires or passes it on to another generation, and is all too aware of the bad reputation Monument Street carries. "With these cameras and some renovation," he says, "this place is gonna clean up."

Kristen Mahoney, chief of technical services for the Baltimore Police Department, the agency responsible for overseeing the program and securing its government funding, feels that electronic surveillance works in nearly every situation. "Security cameras," she says, "give you maximum coverage. Whatever police or security officers can't reach, these cameras can see. You can basically multiply your abilities."

While the Hopkins system does not rely on community volunteers like the Monument Street system and will receive no city funding, the goal of the systems is ultimately the same: a decrease in crime and an increase in security. "The presence of cameras alone," Mahoney says, "acts as an incredible deterrent to a criminal element in the area. Also, footage captured on camera provides a huge asset to criminal trials."

With a series of 32 cameras spread between the AMRs and up and down Charles Street from the Interfaith Center to the Homewood Apartments, the Hopkins system promises an increased range of coverage for security services on campus and a visible reminder of security precautions in action.

Dean of Students Paula Burger says that the cameras will act "as one of a number of tools that are being employed to enhance the security on campus." She admits "video surveillance is not a panacea," but agrees with the assessment that the systems "can be a useful tool in deterring crime and protecting persons and property."

But will they work? There is no question that, in many cases, the systems produce results. In Jersey City, N.J., cameras captured a shooting in progress just five days after they were installed. After the footage was reviewed, the shooters were apprehended and pled guilty. London uses a series of 350 cameras to monitor areas throughout the city. Aside from unintentionally capturing Mick Jagger's daughter having sex outside of a nightclub, the system has an unblemished track record.

Unfortunately, the viability of camera systems often comes down to the question of funding. While Hopkins can afford to maintain the cameras and retain a staff to operate them, Monument Street's system may fall by the wayside as similar systems in Detroit, Miami, and Oakland did, axed by city governments who felt they were a drain of resources and money.

Yet the relative size of Baltimore coupled with an aggressive police presence has helped to make other surveillance systems, such as the cameras that survey Greektown and the Port of Baltimore complex a success. In fact, it has been enough of a success to make City Hall feel confident in the effectiveness of camera systems. In addition to the Monument Street cameras, which will be installed first, the city also plans to install cameras along Park Heights Avenue in West Baltimore and sections of Greenmount Avenue, ending roughly six blocks south of Charles Village.