City officials and civil liberties advocates are taking opposite positions on the city’s plans to set up security cameras at several locations in Sacramento. The two sides are presenting opposing views on the effectiveness of surveillance systems.

Mayor Kevin Johnson said in April that the surveillance system would help decrease crime in Sacramento. While locations for the cameras have not yet been selected, Johnson has said that K Street and Regional Transit stations are the kinds of high-traffic and high-crime sites that could be suitable for surveillance.

The city intends to purchase a $615,000 surveillance package that includes 32 security cameras, four mobile surveillance trailers and other related equipment. The money would come from Federal Homeland Security grant funds. The state will distribute the federal grant funds to the city.

While the grant money was promised to the city in April, the city is still waiting to receive the federal funds from the California Emergency Management Agency. The city expects to receive the funds, but is still working with the state to obtain the funding, said Sacramento Police Department spokesman Norm Leong. If the city receives the funding, it will buy the surveillance equipment through a procurement process, according to the police department.

The city’s plans are stirring public debate. The local branch of the American Civil Liberties Union is opposing the city’s planned surveillance system. Jim Updegraff, the chair of the Sacramento County Chapter of the ACLU, claimed in May that numerous studies have “demonstrated video cameras are ineffective in reducing crime.”

The Sacramento Press reviewed a recent academic study about surveillance effectiveness and asked officials in the police department and the mayor’s office to comment on its findings. UC Berkeley researchers studied the city of San Francisco’s surveillance system, known as the Community Safety Camera program, and released a report in December 2008.

One of the areas examined in the report was violent crime. “We find no evidence of an impact of the Community Safety Cameras on violent crime,” the report states.

While the UCB researchers do not see connections between security cameras and violent crime, they state that surveillance cameras could have caused property crimes to drop. “We find statistically significant and substantial declines in property crime within view of the Community Safety Cameras,” according to the report.

Leong said that security cameras already help the police department to combat crime. The department analyzes footage taken by private citizens and video from cameras at businesses, Leong noted. “We know for a fact, as a tool to solve crimes, it’s always been helpful,” he said. "Locally, both violent and property crimes have been solved with the use of surveillance footage."

Mayor Johnson’s spokesman Joaquin McPeek referred to the cameras as a tool.

"We're going to use every tool in the toolbox to reduce crime in Sacramento, including these cameras, and we can do it without infringing on civil liberties,” McPeek said.

Security cameras are now installed at some city facilities, Police Chief Rick Braziel said in May. Leong also noted that there are three surveillance cameras on Del Paso Boulevard. The security cameras currently being used are not part of the system that would be paid by the $615,000 grant.

Johnson and Sacramento Police Chief Rick Braziel were not available to respond to questions Wednesday.

Read the UCB report through the ACLU’s website under the "related documents" section. The report is titled “CITRIS Report: The San Francisco Community Safety Camera program.” The Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society is a UC Berkeley research program.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.