Neighbourhood watch 2.0: Guelph police ask businesses, residents to register security cameras
Police in Guelph want more eyes on the streets and are asking residents and businesses to help by volunteering their security cameras.
Det. Sgt. Chris Probst with the Guelph Police Service says the goal of allowing police access to private home and business security cameras is about making the community safer.
"It's a voluntary program where you say, 'Hey, I do have video, I'm at this address, this is my name, this is my contact,'" says Probst.
"We geolocate everybody's registration so we know where the cameras are. And then if an event happens to occur, instead of going around knocking on doors … now we have this little sort of database where we can just call the person and say we have had an incident."
The Security Cameras Assisting Neighbours in Guelph or SCANinGuelph started in 2022 and so far about 150 businesses and residents have signed up. It allows police to view any security camera footage, including Ring cams, on a case-by-case basis when a crime has been committed.
Probst says even after signing away permission to share with police the business or homeowner has the "option of saying 'I want to stay out of it.'"
But a legal studies expert at the University of Waterloo has some issues with programs like this overall.
Not an effective deterrent
Krystal Shore is a post doctoral fellow in the department of sociology and legal studies at the University of Waterloo.
She says while the goal of the program is to reduce crime and promote community safety, she's not sure how the program will achieve that.
"It's promoting the idea that surveillance is inherently beneficial, which is, I think, a very commonly held and certainly understandable concept. But unfortunately, according to research, that's just not the case," said Shore.
"Studies show again and again that simply increasing surveillance, whether at home or in communities and public spaces, does not necessarily lead to better crime prevention or crime resolution. It's not an effective deterrent."
Shore believes more effort needs to be put into public safety initiatives like "enhancing social services or urban infrastructure like better lighting on streets" rather than expanding home or police surveillance networks.
Effective use of evidence in court
Probst notes that in the past video evidence has been effectively used in court.
"There is something called the best evidence rule in the world of courts. And I don't know how better you can get in the form of evidence when you were capturing a suspect or suspects committing the actual act [in a video recording], said Probst.
"It's hard hitting for the court system in the sense of there it is, it's right there. Rather than depending on, you know, witness recollection of suspects description or some other form. There's nothing better than video."
Similar security programs have been started by the RCMP and police services across the country in cities like Vancouver, Edmonton and North Bay.
