Cameras Present, but Victims Dead

I have made the point before about how police surveillance cameras are not deterrents to crime, so this story touched a nerve for me this morning:

Baltimore's expansive police surveillance network has led to a homicide arrest, after a downtown stabbing was captured in real-time by city cameras.

In another case, police arrested a suspect in a fatal shooting after a home surveillance system captured a confrontation on a block where a man was gunned down.

Authorities monitoring the city's blue-light CitiWatch cameras observed an altercation at about 1:40 a.m. Saturday in the 300 block of N. Paca St. and officers who responded to the scene found 18-year-old David Reese suffering from a stab wound to the chest, according to charging documents. Using the cameras, officials tracked the apparent assailant running through a parking lot, and cameras recorded his capture and arrest by police.

That's wonderful, but the victims still died. A lot of the people who trumpet the use of surveillance cameras and the expansion of the nannystate like to sell these cameras on the concept that they prevent crimes from occurring. Well, in a city as relatively lawless in Baltimore, that is never going to happen, and this pretty much proves it.

And this quote really pisses me off:

"Baltimore is using cameras in a way that a lot of other jurisdictions are not, by using them pro-actively, especially in the downtown areas where they have monitors watching cameras almost 24-7," said Nancy La Vigne, a senior researcher with the Urban Institute. "It's not just a technology that sits."

And what way is that exactly? How is it being "pro-active" to use these cameras to capture crimes on video, and then deal with the repercussions after the fact as the officers would do in any normal circumstances? It's not like the camera is shooting lasers at criminals to actively stop them from doing anything; it is just a passive box that records what is going on around it. A technology that, in fact, just sits there.

When are people going to realize that police cameras are nothing more than a sham? And when are police departments and lawmakers going to stand up and direct resources to more useful crime fighting techniques than surveillance that general only captures the actions of law-abiding citizens?

Fighting Crime with Stupidity

You don't have to be paying too much attention to realize that you go to Arundel Mills these days at your own risk. Crime has become damn near commonplace at the sprawling mall complex that was (theoretically) designed to be a haven for tourists and for local commerce, not a magnet for criminal elements. Well, instead of doing something constructive to combat the crime wave that has overcome the mall, County Councilman Daryl Jones has decided to do something.....else:

Citing a recent robbery and the perception that Arundel Mills mall is unsafe, County Councilman Daryl Jones is considering introducing a bill that would require all malls to install security cameras in their parking lots.

Yeah, that is Jones' total solution to the Arundel Mills crimewave; security cameras at all malls in the county, much like a Baltimore County law I wrote about four years ago. To prove how completely asinine the Councilman's suggestion, chew on this nugget information:

Les Morris, a spokesman for Simon Malls, the parent company of Arundel Mills and Marley Station in Glen Burnie, declined to talk about how the legislation would affect the malls without seeing the specifics.

"We have an extensive (closed-circuit TV) network that covers the property, both inside and out," he said.

So Jones' solution to the crime problem at Arundel Mills is to require all county mall owners to have the same system that is not solving the problem at Arundel Mills. That's brilliant.

As usual, Democrats always try to enact "solutions" that deal with our crime problems in ways that are designed to make the public feel comfortable with their surroundings as opposed to actually dealing with the crime problem. Democrats love the idea of an ever expanding network of surveillance cameras that we have noted in the past will never stop one crime from being committed. Not one. You might get some cool footage of somebody being robbed (or worse) in the parking lot, but it will be the very definition of naivete to think that a street criminal is going to be deterred one bit by a camera (unless we are installing some sort of Transformers).

The prudent solution would be working with the Simon Company in increaisng police patrols and police presence in the are to arrest criminals......but who ever said Maryland Democrats wants to actually implement prudent solutions?

Meanwhile....

More bad news in Washington, as Congressional Democrats are about to require national service from our children and, potentially, redefine how non-profit corporations are operated in America. As a small government conservative and a non-profit Board Chairman, color me less than enthusiastic about Washington determining how non-profit activities are going to be operated.

Lots more over at RedState on this issue, and check out Sen. Jim DeMint trying to bring some common sense to the issue:

A Less than Stunning Development

Didn't catch this on Sunday, but to the surprise of absolutely no one the Free State came in dead last in personal freedom:

It's no shock that Maryland falls on the nanny state side of the ledger.

But it was still a surprise to hear the finding in a recent study by libertarian professors that Maryland came in dead last in personal freedom among the 50 states. (Alaska is No. 1.)

Among the reasons: Maryland lacks gay marriage or civil unions, aggressively prosecutes victimless drug crimes, keeps tight controls on land use and has the nation's second-strictest gun laws after California.

"You might call it 'suburban liberalism' ... kind of the idea that we need to take care of people, make sure they don't harm themselves," said Jason Sorens, co-author of the study and an assistant professor of political science at the University at Buffalo.....

...."For Maryland to end up last, that was a bit surprising, especially since the margin wasn't terribly close," Sorens said with a laugh.

The full report is available here. And it gets worse; according to the study, we are the fifth least free state overall when you tie in our ranking as the 34th least free state based on economic factors.

How does the study describe our personal freedom issues? Like this:

Maryland’s impositions on personal freedom include the second-strictest gun laws in the country, and marijuana laws are fairly harsh (except that the first offense of high-level possession is a misdemeanor, and there is a weak medical marijuana law), motorists’ freedoms are highly restricted, gambling laws are tight, home schooling laws are burdensome (curricula must be approved by the government), centralized land-use planning is very advanced, eminent domain abuse is totally unreformed, victimless crimes arrest rates are high, and civil unions are not recognized.

Yeah, that about sums it up nicely.

Now obviously, and as Hartley points out, Maryland is not going to be all things to all people when it comes to personal freedom. But there are a lot of personal freedom issues listed in that list that are anathema to all facets of conservatism, and several that will cross party lines. As we have talked about hte issue of Republican branding time and time again, it is incumbent upon us as Republicans to take on the mantra of the party of smaller government and try to champion a number of these issues. In Maryland, the Democrats are the party of the nannystate, and we as Republicans need to make them own it.

The Attitude Problem

To follow up on yesterday's post, George Della quickly dropped his proposal to outlaw beer pong But that is not really the story I'd like to focus on here.

I'd like to focus more on attitude, particularly the attitude of legislators to try and legislate our way into social order. You have Della's bill outlawing beer pong. You have attempts to outlaw texting while driving. This gets added to a number of other behavioral bills that we have seen over the years; smoking in bars, smoking in homes, smoking in private homes (at least in the Montgomery County fiasco from a few years back), mandating seat belt use, banning trans-fats. Greg Kline keeps a whole list of bills to legislate how we eat during episodes of the Conservative Refuge. Communities across the country mandate participation in recycling programs. All of this examples deal with government trying to overlegislate human behavior.

Is that any way to live? Is this any way to treat free people? Of course it's not. But government officials (usually Democrats) always try to come up with new ways to limit freedom, to limit the ability of people to enjoy the fruits of our American way of life. Most of them are patently unenforceable. A lot of them certainly do not stop certain human behaviors; people still smoke, people still choose not to wear their seatbelt, and elected officials still (allegedly) have sex in public. A law is not going to stop certain behaviors that are objectionable to some other people. You socially engineer people through legislation in a free society.

George Della's foray into beer pong just goes to display the lengths that we have Americans have allowed politicians to convince us that our safety and our ability to regulate our own lives need to be sacrificed in order for the greater good. All the while Della tries to overregulate the lives of regular Baltimoreans, Della was doing bumpkis to lower Baltimore's crime rate, get drugs off of city streets, create economic incentives for city job creation, and provide city students with a decent education. All of those things went unaccounted for as Della worried about beer pong.

That sis the larger attitude problem. Elected officials would rather pass on doing the hard work that is needed, and instead do the easy but meaningless things to get their name in print. That's the attitude that we as Marylanders need to fight. We need to expect more from our elected officials, and demand that they stop nannying us to death....

Della goes Balls Deep

Apparently all of Baltimore City's problems have been solved. Why else would State Senator George Della of Baltimore City introduce legislation aimed at beer pong in the city?

Don't believe me? Here's some verbiage directly from the text of the legislation:

(B) A HOLDER OF A RETAIL ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES LICENSE OR
OWNER OR OPERATOR OF A BOTTLE CLUB MAY NOT PROMOTE, ENCOURAGE, OR ALLOW ON THE PREMISES A GAME COMMONLY KNOWN AS BEER PONG OR ANY OTHER GAME OR CONTEST THAT INVOLVES DRINKING ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES OR THE AWARDING OF DRINKS OF ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES AS PRIZES.

Really? Is this really necessary? Do we really need to impugn on the freedom of Baltimore City residents, businesses, and bar patrons by micromanaging the lives of its citizenry like this? Does this really need to be a state issue?

Oh.....and did the homicides, rampant drug used, urban decay, and ghastly public schools in Baltimore City suddenly get fixed over night? Because otherwise, Senator Della is seriously asleep at the switch.

There is no other way to say this: Senator Della needs to loosen up, get a life, and focus on the legitimate problems that Baltimore City has. And I assure you the beer pong is far, far, FAR from the list of priorities facing the city. And you never know; if this Carrie Nation act keeps up, maybe another team of rivals will form to bring some common sense to the situation...

Taking the good with the batty

Noted lefty-loon Michael Dresser actually looked like he was starting out with something interesting and sensible this morning:

Tom Hicks knows almost everything there is to know about Maryland highways. He's 75, and has been the State Highway Administration's chief traffic safety engineer for 40 years. He's as frisky and energetic as a new recruit and isn't planning to retire "till I get it right."

Hicks is a passionate advocate of safer roads but not a by-the-book devotee of current posted speed limits. In fact, he's all for raising the speed limit on some Maryland highways.

"We're really somewhat fraudulent in our speed limits - like on the Beltway," Hicks said during a recent extended chat at the highway administration's safety office near BWI.

OK, that's a good start. What was next?

Hicks said that on limited-access highways, it's safest for drivers to go with the flow rather than stick to the legal limit. Based on years of study of driver behavior, he has a high degree of confidence in the judgment of most folks on the road. Except for a stubbornly fast 10 to 15 percent, he said, drivers tend to choose a sensible rate of speed - regardless of the posted limit.

"The motorist is setting a pace based on conditions at the time, no matter what the signs are," Hicks said. What matters most to safety, he said, is "relative speed." That is, the less difference between thee and me and all the others on the road, the better.

Hey, it looks like somebody is finally starting to make sense when it comes to traffic policy, speed limits, and law enforcement. And of course, it is a traffic engineer. It's nice to see that somebody who has the experience and the background on speed limits and traffic flow is speaking out so publicly about how bad state policy is in setting speed limits on limited-access highways.

Of course, never one to actually make a lick of sense, Dresser pipes in with his own poppycock:

My suggestion, for which Hicks is blameless: Increase the prevailing speed limit on roads such as the beltways, Route 32 and Route 100, but couple that with stiffer enforcement, including the use of cameras. Cut the unofficial police zone of tolerance, now 10 to 15 mph, roughly in half.

Next, establish 80 mph - or 20 over the limit - as the Line of Doom for Maryland roads. Mandatory court date for reckless driving. No probation. Big insurance bills. Big billboard campaign.

Yes, this is no less crazy than when Dresser floated such nonsense on Christmas Morning 2006. Of course, this is completely insane assuming that the highest threshold would be 85 MPH on a posted 65 MPH roadway. One can easily and safely negotiate most highways in the region that are outside of the immediate metropolitan areas at speeds of 85 or higher. Artificially limiting speeds at 85 will do nothing but exacerbate the existing problems. It still takes the judgment away from the driver and the police officer and immediately creates a crime that may or may not be happening at the time.

Dresser's cockamamie plan will accomplish nothing but higher court fees, higher administrative costs and, somewhat ironically, fewer cops on the street to enforce his silly idea.

Dance, Dance Revolution

I shouldn't give the O'Malleyistas any more ideas, but this sounds like something the General Assembly would come up with in taking on a small local establishment....or perhaps the folks opposing the Fillmore down in Montgomery County...



(H/T Instapundit and Ed Driscoll)

Inconsistent

My colleague Streiff as noted went and contacted the offices of the sponsors of HB47 and HB48 that I wrote of yesterday. I am glad that Delegate Impallaria's office responded by providing a copy of the Delegate's Press Release on the matters.

What that doesn't address, however, is the nannystatist attitude that the press release conveys. Let's face it, if you read the release, basically the purpose of this legislation is to protect people from themselves by limiting their access to gambling facilities if they wish to play on credit or have gambling problems.

But aren't these the same kind of arguments that we as conservatives ridicule when liberals want to protect people from themselves as it relates to guns?

It seems that Delegate Impallaria is opposed to slots. And that is fine and a reasonable position for a conservative to have, even if it is one I disagree with. However, it is very hard to be a consistent conservative while proposing legislation that sounds like something I would expect from the far left of Maryland's Democratic Caucus...

An idea that's all wet

It's getting harder and harder to tell the Republicans from the Democrats at the County level without a scorecard when you hear about stuff like this:

Of course, protecting her firefighter husband from harm is an added benefit of the mandatory fire sprinkler initiative Councilman Cathy Vitale plans to push this month.

But the reason she wants every new home in Anne Arundel County to come with sprinklers springs from a story he once told her after a heart breaking day on the job.....

....For the past month, she has floated a plan to join the growing ranks of nearly 20 other jurisdictions that require every new home to come with sprinklers.

At least six counties have the rule, from neighboring Prince George's County - which passed the ordinance in 1992 and since then has not seen a fire death in any of the 50,000 homes with sprinklers - to Talbot County, where an ordinance passed last week followed the death of a family of three.

Ms. Vitale has shopped her plan to fellow councilmen, who appear largely supportive, firefighters who have been longing for a sprinkler policy since the 1970s and to the homebuilders association, which generally oppose such measures.

This is the type of liberal nannystatism that you would expect from Democrats, not a veteran Republican County Councilwoman in the county's most conservative Councilmanic District. And certainly not from a politician looking for a promotion in 2010. Voters remember when politicians add at least $1 per square foot to the costs of their new home.

And Vitale isn't even the only alleged conservative who is gung ho for this idea:

Councilman Ed Reilly, R-Crofton, is an insurance agent and said the sprinklers will diminish the cost of insurance policies.

"I'm very much in favor of it, and I'm embarrassed we haven't done anything before," Mr. Reilly said at the hearing.

And the real question on everybody's mind is how in the world the residents of this county are going to pay for this?

For example, neighborhoods on wells must also install holding tanks to make sure the sprinklers have enough pressure to work.

Who is going to pay for that? Is the county going to force new communities to build holding tanks, thus artificially inflating the prices of these new homes?

Additionally if people currently want sprinklers, they can have sprinklers. The market is already giving people the option. And the market seems to be taking care of this:

Today, people building custom homes order sprinklers, but it is rare for the builder of a subdivision to voluntarily install them in a new home, said Larry Cate, the vice president of Absolute Fire Protection in Severna Park who has been installing sprinkling systems in Anne Arundel for two decades.

"You won't close a tough sell," Mr. Cate said of sprinkler skeptics. "It's usually black or white. You either believe in it and you want it, or you don't."

The extra costs put builders constructing neighborhoods at a competitive disadvantage, but Mr. Cate suspects that if every home was forced to have it, the playing field would be even.

Which is also a completely ridiculous statement from Mr. Cate. The playing field is already even. Some builders choose to install sprinklers. Some don't. The consumer gets to make that choice as it is.

We all agree that deaths from fires in the home are a tragic loss to a family and a tragic loss to the community. But this idea is all wet. What is the benefit to the consumer if such systems are mandated? What are the chances that a home is going to be involved in a fire? Do we really want to pass such a cost on to homeowners, who are already going to be expected to pay more and more under the O'Malley tax plan? Do we want to pinch builders, who will likely see somewhat of a hit in business if they are required to install such systems at an additional cost?

I can see the current existing requirement in multi-unit dwellings. But to require that such sprinkler systems in new single-family homes is excessive. In a climate that already finds it difficult to construct affordable housing, why should new costs be added to by government. Vitale and Reilly should really reconsider their positions on this issue, as this is not the kind of conservatism we expect from our Republican elected officials.

Big Brother is watching your ride

With the concept of High Occupancy Toll lanes becoming more and more in vogue, this idea was bound to come forward:

Are drivers ready to be scanned like groceries at the supermarket?

The answer will help determine whether Washington area commuters use a planned network of high-occupancy and toll lanes, which will start to take shape next year when an expansion of the Capital Beltway is to begin.

The lanes are billed as the salvation of the suffering commuter. Solo drivers will be able to buy their way around congestion, while carpoolers will ride free. But the lanes' success hinges on finding a way to differentiate between paying and nonpaying customers without stopping every vehicle to count heads.

The private companies that will build and operate the Beltway lanes have proposed using technology that would scan drivers and passengers with bursts of infrared light that detect human skin. The technology is so sophisticated that it can distinguish human faces from decoy dummies and shotgun-riding dogs, according to Ken Daley, a senior vice president at toll road operator Transurban, one of two private companies behind the Beltway project.

So, why exactly is it going to require privacy-invading technology to police HOT lanes? Why can't these lanes be policed in the same way that HOV lanes are policed today? And how much is this boondoggle going to cost taxpayers?

HOT lanes are a great idea. But this way of enforcing them is another step forward in support of the nannystate....

Montgomery County gets even more nannystatish

If you didn't think Montgomery County tried to control the lives of its citizens enough, here comes this:

It's for your own good, Montgomery County. Really.

The county has banned trans fats in restaurants and is considering mandatory nutrition labels on menus. And now an Obesity Task Force is trying to brainstorm ways to prod residents to make healthier food choices.

Its first targets are kids in child-care centers and county employees. Better informed child-care providers and less-fattening vending machine choices would be the means.

Read the whole thing, it's ridiculous. The county is aghast that people "aren't aware that there are better choices." When I have a cheeseburger, I know that there are healthier choices I could make. It's just that sometimes I just want a damn cheeseburger (usually a really good damn cheeseburger). Montgomery County has so many bigger problems to worry about than worry about what its residents are eating...

Trans-Fat between the ears

The City of Los Angeles comes up with something that even Baltimore City and Montgomery County have managed not to come up with yet; "health zoning":

Amid warnings of an obesity epidemic and related illnesses, including high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease, Los Angeles officials, among others around the country, are proposing to limit new fast-food restaurants. Call it health zoning.

The City Council will be asked this fall to consider a moratorium of up to two years on new fast-food restaurants in South L.A., an area where fast food is at least as much a practicality as a preference.

"The people don't want them, but when they don't have any other options, they may gravitate to what's there," said Councilwoman Jan Perry, who proposed the ordinance in June and whose district includes portions of South L.A. that would be affected.

In just a quarter-mile near the University of Southern California, there are about 20 fast-food outlets.

"To be honest, it's all we eat," Rey Merlan said one recent lunch hour at a Kentucky Fried Chicken. "Everywhere, it's fast food everywhere."

Merlan said it wasn't likely that a limit on new restaurants would change peoples' habits, even though he thinks it's a good idea.

Once again, government completely overreaches its logical boundaries and wants to attempt to limit what businesses may or may not go where. Which is kind of ridiculous, and discriminatory.

Think about it. Councilwoman Perry is concerned that "when they don't have any other options, they may gravitate to what's there." Has she (and people liked the idiotically named Center for Food and Justice) considered why they may not have any other options? If you are a lower to lower-middle class family of four, and you do not have time to prepare a meal, what is fairer to that family: allowing them to buy Happy Meals at McDonald's or forcing them to go to Chez Ripoff and get salmon cakes when they can realistically only afford McDonald's?

The point is not whether or not restaurants should be banned in those areas. It's why individuals in those areas should not have the freedom of choice to eat where they want to eat and to have the options in their ares that appeal to them. The already choose to vote with their wallets buy frequenting these establishments. If they do not want to eat fast food, either because they don't like it or they want to make healthier choices, they have this option. And quite frankly, who is to say that by banning these fast food establishments that they will eat healthier? Many inner-cities have numerous local (and delicious) fast-food style establishments serving greasy, unhealthy food.

Once again, government needs to stay out of people's stomachs.