The cameras were placed based on a map of the city’s crime hot spots prepared by the police. Municipal police officers monitor, among other locations, Bolesławiec’s market square, Piłsudskiego and Popiełuszki squares, the Kwiatowe housing estate, and the intersection of Cieszkowskiego and Staszica streets. The cameras operate around the clock, seven days a week. The monitoring centre is located at the municipal police headquarters on Mikołaja Brody Street.
Three people operate the surveillance system. “All the cameras are working,” assures Emil Zając, commander of the Bolesławiec Municipal Police. If one of them is damaged, the servicing company installs a temporary camera in its place. Municipal police officers do not monitor the images from all 16 cameras simultaneously. Nevertheless, footage from each camera is recorded and may serve as evidence in a case. “It happens that police officers ask to review the surveillance footage,” says the commander. In Emil Zając’s view, the fact that such requests are relatively rare shows that the surveillance system is fulfilling its preventive function. However, it is not known in how many cases it was crucial to the evidence. Neither the police nor the municipal police keep such statistics.
This does not mean, however, that municipal police officers have less work. They intervene a dozen or so times a week, mainly in cases of offences. The most common are drinking alcohol in public places and littering. And if someone caught in the act denies it, the officers have camera footage.
The municipality allocates PLN 7,000–8,000 per month to operating the surveillance system. But, as Emil Zając stresses, the system is doing its job: “In places where cameras operate, the number of crimes committed decreases.” Thanks to the surveillance system, several perpetrators of assaults have been arrested, and the people washing car windows disappeared from the intersection of Cieszkowskiego and Staszica streets.
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(ii information)