NORTHAMPTON — As Northampton debates whether to install surveillance cameras downtown, a survey of Hampshire County’s larger communities found that only one uses the technology for crime prevention.
Most others, however, use cameras to enhance security around police stations and city and town halls, though police chiefs have no plans to expand their departments’ current capacities.
At least two communities — Amherst and Belchertown — have cameras with the capability of monitoring wider areas of town. And only Amherst uses such surveillance to stop crime, as Northampton Police Chief Jody Kasper envisions for cameras in her community.
The Northampton City Council is debating an ordinance that would prohibit the installation of permanent police surveillance cameras downtown. The city’s police department already uses cameras around its police station.
“It’s how we live now. Everybody has got cameras, everything is being monitored,” Amherst Police Chief Scott Livingstone said. “There are really no expectations of privacy anywhere in the public. I guess it’s just the world we live in now.”
In Amherst, cameras are managed by the town’s information technology department at the request of police. Both the inside and outside of the Police Department are under video surveillance. Cameras are in place at the Boltwood Parking Garage and the Bangs Community Center, and a camera on top of the central fire station monitors the bar and business crowd on North Pleasant Street, Livingstone said.
The town manager approved installation of the cameras, Livingstone said.
“All were a result of crime activity in the area, concern from the elderly or issues with unlawful behavior, that sort of thing,” the chief said. “We’re not looking to put cameras just anywhere to have them.”
Speaking specifically about the camera placed near the community center, Livingstone said there was an issue a number of years ago involving a lot of drug deals in the area. The cameras were instrumental in stopping that activity.
“We’ve ended that,” he said of the drug dealing.
Livingstone recounted a number of examples of recent crimes that were solved or problems that were stopped because of police and private surveillance cameras, including the arrest of a Belchertown man accused of hitting and killing a man waiting for a bus on North Pleasant Street last November.
“We wouldn’t have solved that case if we didn’t have the camera on that Fire Department building,” Livingstone said.
Amherst Police also use a mobile surveillance unit and hand-held cameras during big events like Hobart Hoedown and Blarney Blowout.
Livingstone said video captured by the surveillance cameras is regulated under a “pretty strict policy.” The chief is the only one who can approve access to the video. The videos themselves are only stored for a period of about five days and after that time access is lost, according to Livingstone.
The department does have the ability to monitor the cameras in real time, but Livingstone said there’s no one who watches it 24/7.
A resident of Northampton, Livingstone said he was surprised by the response Kasper received on her proposal to put cameras along Main Street.
“Jody is a very responsible chief. The concerns are legitimate concerns of people, but I guess in today’s day and age, why wouldn’t you want them? I can tell you, they have been a definite crime deterrent in the areas we have put them,” Livingstone said.
In Belchertown, more than a dozen cameras are focused in and around the police station. Only one camera is placed beyond the boundaries of the State Street station and it’s on the town common, according to Chief Christopher Pronovost.
“I don’t know what the reasoning was when it was put up,” Pronovost said. All the cameras were installed before Pronovost joined the department as its chief more than a year ago.
The camera on the town common is “extremely useful” during the town fair during its setup and after hours, Pronovost said.
All the cameras, Pronovost said, are for security and the department is not surveilling people with them.
“Nobody spends the day watching the town common,” he said.
Dispatchers in the emergency communication center are able to monitor the video feeds in real time but all feeds are seen together on “very small screens,” according to Pronovost.
Access to the approximately 14-day video archive must go through the chief. After the 14-day window, footage is recorded over, Pronovost said.
“We (the police) do not have surveillance cameras in the community,” Easthampton Police Chief Robert Alberti said.
There are at least two surveillance cameras managed by the city that monitor the municipal building and the boardwalk.
Alberti said surveillance cameras have not been discussed during his tenure with the department.
“Obviously, it is a hot topic,” Alberti said. “One thing I think about often when I think about security cameras outside is the Boston Marathon. Had they not used and had access to that video, who knows where that case would have gone?”
While Easthampton Police don’t maintain any security or surveillance cameras in the city, that doesn’t mean they haven’t used them in investigations. Businesses and private entities in and around the downtown area with cameras have been “very helpful over the years in apprehending suspects for a variety of crimes,” Alberti said.
South Hadley Police Chief Steven Parentela said the department doesn’t have surveillance cameras in town.
“Intersection cameras might be a good idea but we don’t have any,” Parentela said.
Police do have security cameras around the police station and town hall, but Parentela said they are for the security of the buildings rather than to surveil anything. The cameras have been in place for more than two decades.
“We don’t have any cameras on the public at this time,” he said.
Parentela said police used mobile surveillance cameras in 2004 when the U.S. Women’s Open Golf Championship was held at the Orchards Golf Club.
Private security cameras have been used in the past by police to help in investigations.
Parentela said there has not been any request for surveillance cameras by the general public nor by officers themselves.
Emily Cutts can be reached at ecutts@gazettenet.com.