A West Philly group has launched an effort to give residents free surveillance cameras
The program is one of the first in the city that provides residents with free cameras, a tool investigators increasingly rely on to solve violent crime.
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More than 200 West Philadelphia residents will soon have surveillance cameras installed on their homes for free as part of a new effort that aims to expand the city’s network of cameras on which investigators increasingly rely to solve violent crime.
While business owners have been eligible for years to receive subsidies for security cameras through the city, the new program, launched Friday and funded by a state grant, is the largest program aimed at providing cameras to residents for free.
Those who apply for the cameras will be chosen based on proximity to areas that experienced high rates of violent crime in 2020, when gun violence skyrocketed in cities across America amid the pandemic, said Jabari Jones, president of the West Philadelphia Corridor Collaborative, the business group heading the project. Several neighborhoods west of the Schuylkill have been among those hardest hit by the shootings crisis that continues to persist.
Jones said his group collaborated with the Police Department to map crime data in West Philadelphia and identified areas as small as a square block that saw dozens of incidents of violent crime in a single year. Their plan is to overlay applicants’ addresses with that data, and cameras will be given first to those who live in areas that saw the most incidents.
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About 60 residents will be chosen each month to receive the cameras, which will be installed by a telecommunications company based in the city. An additional 100 businesses will be eligible for cameras through the program, and Jones said the group aims to have all 310 cameras installed within the next five months.
The devices will all be registered with the Police Department’s SafeCam network, which connects investigators to residents with security cameras in the aftermath of an incident.
Jones said his organization is typically focused on business development, not providing grants to residents. But he said those interests are interconnected, and believes cameras can serve as deterrents to crime.
“This makes people feel more comfortable,” he said, “and gives businesses more of a peace of mind so they can operate and stay open later.”
The program, dubbed Project Safe Corridors, was funded through a $182,000 grant by the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development.
Residents interested in a camera can apply online. The application will remain open until the program’s funds are exhausted.
The Philadelphia Inquirer is one of more than 20 news organizations producing Broke in Philly, a collaborative reporting project on solutions to poverty and the city’s push toward economic justice. See all of our reporting at brokeinphilly.org.