Boston transit camera system pays off in crime reduction

Jan 30, 2007 3:40 PM

More than 450 security cameras watching for potential terrorists on Boston's rapid transit railways are now helping catch alleged criminals, according to a report by the Boston Globe.

Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA) Transit Police recently arrested a 27-year-old man accused of robbing a passenger at gunpoint at one of its stations. Such cases have often gone unsolved, officials tell the newspaper, and the arrest would have been far less likely without digital images from a surveillance camera at the station.

So far, about a dozen crimes have been solved with help from the cameras, and transit police expect many more cases.

The camera network "has aided us tremendously in identifying suspects that normally would not have been identified in the past," says Sergeant Detective Michael Adamson. "Hopefully, the word will get out that these cameras are in place and people will reconsider their actions before committing crimes on the MBTA."

He adds that even when police are unable to positively identify a suspect with the digital images, they usually get promising leads by significantly enhancing a suspect's description to include details of clothing and distinguishing features, such as tattoos.

MBTA saw more than 200 robberies and attempted robberies on the last year, according to Transit Police statistics obtained by the Globe.

The cameras were installed -- about 50 more will be put in by spring -- throughout the transit system, funded in part by $23 million in federal Homeland security grants since 2002. The fiber-optic cameras, which record images with far more detail than older video cameras, are in place at every subway station and some bus stations and are monitored at a series of security hubs, the Globe reports.

Adamson says the cameras are also being used to investigate possible fraud by people who say they were injured by MBTA negligence. "I had a guy tell me he fell down the stairs and we have him on video just sitting on the floor," he tells the newspaper.

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