SWC needs security cameras

Security and surveillance cameras are a daily sight in buses, banks, stores and restaurants. Most people have come to accept them and find them comforting as a safeguard against crime.

Southwestern College should also invest in security cameras because the small amount of crime that does occur here could be prevented. More

important, big crimes could be prevented, too. Tragedies that have happened elsewhere could happen here.Being photographed or videotaped is something most people have grown used to. Camera lenses are everywhere. Built-in cameras on monitors of computers have enabled users to have video chats with folks on the other side of the planet.  People who have become used to using cameras or Skype do not have the same attitude about cameras older generations did when George Orwell wrote his paranoid political classic “1984.” Interestingly enough, the government is not Orwell’s “Big Brother.” Most surveillance is done by private concerns.Cameras have become a valuable tool for recording abuse of authority. Violent cops, sadistic nannies and dysfunctional senior care facilities have all been busted by well-placed cameras. It seems old-fashioned that we do not have security cameras in the classrooms and that is most likely a result of our college’s shrunken budget. Cameras would lower the risk of sexual harassment to students and instructors.
In 2011 there were three car thefts at SWC. But if a low crime rate has put the college back on its heels, that is an opening for a disaster. Robert Sanchez, SWC’s acting police chief, said cameras at high-traffic buildings like the Academic Success Center are not catching any crimes.
“Theft of backpacks, cell phones, iPads, anything electronic that people leave behind for long periods of time, they get stolen,” he said. “Unfortunately, a lot of the crimes end up happening outside of the view of the cameras because they are fixed. They don’t pan, they don’t tilt and they’re just a fixed station.”

Newer buildings at SWC are more likely to have security camera systems already installed because they are a part of the design. Sanchez said campus police do not plan to add more cameras.

“It all depends on funding,” he said. “I mean priority comes to the students and classroom space and instructional services before it comes to anything secondary such as the camera systems.”

Funding could come from the Proposition R facilities bond. A priority should be security camera systems for older buildings, in cluding the classrooms and parking lots. This investment would help keep SWC safe and beautiful like a community college campus should be.