Posted: Jan 28, 2008 05:07 PM PST

South Sioux City police are using digital cameras to crack down on graffiti.

The technology catches vandals in the act and provides concrete evidence to prove they're guilty.

City council is planning to spend $24,000 to buy more cameras because of the program's success. South Sioux City currently has six graffiti cameras and they are moved around the city periodically to target different tagging hot spots.

The technology has helped police catch and convict several vandals over the past four years. So now the city wants to add four more cameras to the rotation.

 

This camera springs to life when it detects motion. It's designed to catch taggers in the act.

"It's just a handful of people that do graffiti within the South Sioux City and the whole Siouxland area, and it's our desire obviously to curb that as much as possible," says Lance Hedquist, a South Sioux City administrator.

While police actively patrol the city, tagging takes only a matter of seconds, making it extremely difficult to catch.

South Sioux City leaders want to put four more cameras on the streets. Each one runs about $6,000.

"What we want to do is expand that program, cover more areas. Some of the cameras will be visible so you can actually see them out in the public. Others will be invisible and disguised if you will," says Hedquist.

The technology is equipped with solar panels to power the cameras and some have an alarm to catch vandals by surprise.

"What happens is the person instinctively looks directly into the camera to see where the voice is coming from, that's when it takes a second picture. So you get a direct, head-on shot of the individual that's involved," Hedquist says.

Making it much easier to not only catch, but convict criminals.

City leaders say this technology is very effective, especially to identify the person who does the crime. The very first time the cameras caught someone, the tagger said he didn't do it. Then police officers used their in-car computers to capture pictures from the graffiti camera. The guy took one look at the picture and admitted he did it.

 

“Stop! This is private property. It is illegal to spray graffiti. Your picture has just been taken and will be used to prosecute you. Leave the area now!” This is the message that the City of South Sioux City is sending out to those that would deface public and private property in the city.

A great example of how South Sioux City utilizes technology to address issues in the community, the city has implemented four high tech graffiti/vandalism deterrent systems at repeat graffiti problem areas in the city. There were 255 reported graffiti incidents in South Sioux City in the past year. The systems are called FlashCam 770s and are manufactured by Q-Star Technology, a California based company (www.qstartech.com).

I learned about the FlashCam 770 while attending the Public Technology Institute annual conference in Portland, Oregon in April. The Public Technology Institute or PTI, whose mission is to promote the use of technology in local government, recently awarded The City of Phoenix, Arizona the 2005 PTI Solutions Award for the city’s graffiti abatement program. A major part of the Phoenix program is the use of the FlashCam.

The system consists of a high quality 5 mega-pixel digital camera, a motion sensor, a remote control and a high-powered flash mechanism. The systems are solar powered and don’t require any wiring whatsoever making them quick and simple to deploy. The system can be armed so that they are on 24x7 or they can be set to come on at night and shut off in the morning.

Here is how the system works:

 The system is mounted to a building or telephone pole   and is “aimed” at a building or location where the problem is occurring. When the system is armed and a would be perpetrator walks within the area of the motion detector sensor the system activates taking a digital photograph of the area while playing a recording. The recording is customizable; here in South Sioux City our recording says: “Stop! This is private property. It is illegal to spray graffiti. Your picture has just been taken and will be used to prosecute you. Leave the area now!” The system can be set to take up to four pictures per event. It is best to set the system to take at least two pictures. After the flash goes off and the recorded message plays, most individuals look up at the camera to see what is going on. The second picture then often catches the individual looking directly at the camera.

  Before purchasing the FlashCams, I contacted several other cities that are using the system, including Phoenix, Los Angeles, Kansas City and Cincinnati. Their experiences have been much the same as ours: where they have installed the FlashCams, the problem has stopped. The system is a proactive approach to solving the problem of graffiti and vandalism. Very seldom does an individual continue on with the intended graffiti or vandalism after their picture has been taken. The natural reaction in almost all cases is to flee the scene without the crime being committed. Here in South Sioux City we see the system as having great potential in illegal dumping applications as well and plan to deploy a system in this scenario soon.

Rich Gilbertson of Q-Star Technology just recently completed a site visit here in South Sioux City where he showed me several tips and tricks for setting up the system. We toured potential sites here in the city, and he showed me different ways to set the system up to accommodate the different scenarios encountered in the field. We ended up deploying the camera at one of the sites we visited, and it actually resulted in a graffiti arrest. The camera system caught the perpetrator in the act, spray paint can in hand (see accompanying photos) and also fleeing the scene in his vehicle.

My experience with the FlashCam system has been very positive, and I have been impressed with Q-Star Technology’s customer service. The system is relatively simple to deploy and easy to relocate within the city. If anyone has any questions regarding South Sioux City ’s graffiti abatement program, feel free to contact me at 402-494-8328 or lmartin@southsiouxcity.org.