Should Lafayette Police Install Surveillance Cameras in ‘High Crime’ Areas? – Wingin’ It Wednesday

This week on "Wingin' It Wednesday", panelist Carol Ross, Mike Stagg, and Warren Caudle joined "Nathan and Bernie in the Morning" to discuss the Lafayette Police Department's plan to install surveillance cameras in high crime areas.

Here's what the panel had to say:

1. The Police Department wants to install crime cameras in troubled neighborhoods throughout the city, allowing officers to monitor activity from headquarters and on their laptop computers. The department’s proposed budget for next fiscal year sets aside $700,000 for the cameras. Will this help deter crime, or is this 1984?

Warren Caudle started us off:

Are we in 1984? No, we’re in 2014. My point about this thing is that you’re targeting a certain group of people in a certain area. If you’re targeting high crime, you’ve got to define what you mean by crime.
We’re going into the hood, and so many of the folks that live in the hood are a commodity for the criminal justice system. There’s probably around an 80-percent disparity of the people in jail being black.
Let’s put a camera in the Mayor-President’s office. Let’s put one in the police chief’s office. Let’s put one in River Ranch where there’s more drugs than the hood because people there can afford it.

Carol Ross posited:

I called the Chief last night to get a few updates. There’s no presumption of privacy out on the street.
The council members from that particular area actually want this because their constituents are asking for additional police presence. This is a force multiplier in high crime areas to help the citizens in those areas lead peaceful lives.  

Mike Stagg concluded:

11 years into his term and Joey Durel invests money in north Lafayette. The bad news is it’s a spy network.
The biggest impact this will have is it reinforces the image of an occupying army.
If they want to really have an impact on crime, pay police officers the wage they need to be paid and fully employ the police force.

To listen to the full audio from our Wingin' It panelists, click the play button below:

Now it’s your turn to tell us what you think about today’s Wingin’ It Wednesday topics. Who got it right, who got it wrong, and who was way off? Let us know in the comment section.