California deploys hundreds of freeway surveillance cameras in Oakland to fight crime
Hundreds of high-tech surveillance cameras are being installed in the city of Oakland and surrounding freeways to help battle crime, the California governor announced on Friday.
Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, said in a news release that the California highway patrol (CHP) has contracted with Flock Safety, a surveillance technology company, to install 480 cameras that can identify and track vehicles by license plate, type, color and even decals and bumper stickers. The cameras will provide authorities with realtime alerts of suspect vehicles.
Opponents say the technology infringes on privacy and will lead to further police abuse of already marginalized communities. They say it will not address the root causes of crime, such as poverty, housing instability and chronically low wages.
“For every dollar we spend on surveillance cameras, that’s a dollar not spent on proven public safety strategies,” the Anti Police-Terror Project said in a statement. “When we decide to deploy 480 new cameras, we should be asking how many people could be housed with the money we spend on this, how many people could be trained to do living-wage jobs.”
But Newsom, who has deployed state attorneys and CHP officers to assist Oakland in its crackdown on crime, said the surveillance network would give law enforcement tools “to effectively combat criminal activity and hold perpetrators accountable – building safer, stronger communities for all Californians”.
Newsom’s announcement comes amid a decline in highway shootings throughout the state. As the frequency of these incidents increased in the late 2010s, local law enforcement created the Freeway Security Network, a surveillance system comprising ShotSpotter directional microphones and high-resolution cameras.
Even with this technology, these shootings rose from 210 in 2019 to 397 in 2020 and 411 in 2021, according to CHP data analyzed by the Guardian. This increase coincided with a national 30% increase in homicides, primarily driven by gun violence. Highway shootings have decreased since 2021, with 349 shootings in 2022 and 274 in 2023, according to a 24 January press release from the governor’s office .
Even with the recent drop, public safety remains a concern statewide, especially retail theft, prompting even liberal leaders of Democratic cities to embrace increased policing.
But while crime has dropped in other big California cities, it has surged in Oakland, a city of roughly 400,000 across the bay from San Francisco. InN-Out Burger closed its only restaurant in Oakland – the first closure in its 75year history – due to car break-ins, property damage, theft and robberies.
On Thursday, the CEOs of four major employers in downtown Oakland announced plans for a joint $10m security program to improve public safety and protect employees. The companies are Blue Shield of California, Clorox, Kaiser Permanente and Pacific Gas & Electric.
Cat Brooks, executive director of the Anti Police-Terror Project and a 2018 Oakland mayoral candidate, said on Friday that money would be spent on faulty technology and placed in poor communities to further terrorize Black, Latino and other vulnerable residents.
“How many people could be housed or trained into a living wage job or sent to college and get healthcare, things that actually keep people safe?” she said. “You’re divesting in Oakland. You are taking critical resources that this city so desperately needs to build whole, happy, safe communities and you’re putting that toward the same failed strategies.”
Neither the governor’s office nor CHP has said how much the contract will cost.
Nearly 300 of the cameras will be deployed on city streets and the remainder will be deployed on nearby state highways, according to the governor’s statement.
For the sake of privacy, footage will be retained for 28 days and will not be shared with third parties beyond California law enforcement, Newsom’s office said.
This month, voters approved a ballot measure backed by the San Francisco mayor, London Breed, to grant police access to drones and surveillance cameras.