Chicago, USA, contains crime hot-spots that law enforcement officials want to eradicate. With this in mind, they installed surveillance cameras all over the city. With hundreds of these ‘blue-light’ cameras erected, many criminals were caught in the act. Quickly becoming wise to the presence of these police cameras the drug dealers and other criminals simply moved to a different area to carry out their activities and the surveillance is no longer as effective as hoped.

Stepping up to this problem, authorities are now looking to change some of these cameras to covert surveillance cameras. The aim is to use the high tech abilities of this equipment to trap the wrong doers in Chicago society and clean up the streets.

The beauty with this equipment is that it can be hidden in such a small, obscure place that nobody would know it was there. There will be no big announcement about the type or placement of Chicagos covert surveillance but in the near future it will have a meaningful place in getting rid of these crime hot-spots.

This move comes in the wake of a shake up of the Chicago Police Department by order of Mayor Daley where systems were reviewed to ensure every available dollar was put into fighting crime in the district. With a $1.2 billion budget this amounts to having the resources and it is important this money is spent wisely. The aim is to interrupt the intelligence of gangs and drug dealers and gain the upper hand in control of the streets.

The beauty of this type of covert surveillance, according to police superintendent Jody Weis, is that it doesn’t have to be a permanent fixture. So, if the criminals that get caught think they are wise to the cameras whereabouts, this isn’t neccesssarily so. They are virtually mobile devices that can easily be moved to another hot-spot, leaving no stone unturned in the fight against crime.

The use of covert surveillance on the streets is a move that Chicago law enforcement are taking ahead of other cities. Let’s see if it works and maybe other areas will follow suit.