Opinion: Policing, Surveillance, and False Promises of Safety

“Ineffective technology and police violence is only a symptom of a larger problem of politicians claiming that these are what the average citizen needs to feel safe, rather than addressing the root causes that can produce real safety.”

New surveillance technology and increased policing has been hailed as the beacon of hope for citizens who have been convinced that they are unsafe in the streets of many of our major cities. Last month, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that she will be sending 250 more troops from the National Guard in New York City’s subway and that every subway car is now equipped with surveillance cameras. And during his State of the City speech Thursday, Mayor Eric Adams said he’ll be deploying even more police officers to the transit system later this month.

Sensationalized narratives of harm in the media mislead the public about instances of violence and politicians too often capitalize on these moments to posit the penal system and increased surveillance as the solution to public fear. Yet, recent data on crime and the failures of surveillance systems unveil a different reality. Last month, a report from Brooklyn Defender Services uncovered the failure of the city’s $54 million gunshot detection technology, SpotShotter. Their five year investigation found that the technology was not only inaccurate at detection, but it also increased surveillance of Black and Latine New Yorkers.

Ineffective technology and police violence is only a symptom of a larger problem of politicians claiming that these are what the average citizen needs to feel safe, rather than addressing the root causes that can produce real safety. 

Last September, four people were shot after the NYPD opened fire on a man evading the $2.90 fare in one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. Under the Eric Adams administration, the New York City subway system has become inundated with armed police officers and is the testing grounds for new surveillance technology. 

Just months after New York Gov. Hochul deployed 1,000 National Guard soldiers and state police officers at subway stations across the city, Mayor Adams announced the piloting of a new AI-powered weapons-detection technology in the subway system. These sleek scanners, made by the company Evolv, were scheduled to run for 30 days this summer in various undisclosed stations across the city, and sent NYPD officers alerts when a weapon was detected. 

During a briefing about subway safety, Adams stated, “We knew that crime fighting had to be not only the actual numbers, but the perception. How do people feel? How do they believe the system was as they use it every day?” 

His actions are clearly not about the numbers, as subways have had the lowest daily crime rate in 14 years. So, why are New Yorkers being surveilled based on fears that are not rooted in reality? Fear of our subway system is widespread; some studies show that an astounding 78 percent of New Yorkers don’t feel safe riding the subway at night. Yet these fears are not supported by evidence of widespread subway crime.

Our local and national news media are largely responsible for these misleading narratives about crime and violence. For instance, a report by the Center for Just Journalism found that news outlets cover violent and property crimes far more often than other social problems that cause similar levels of harm. Our media too often relies on dehumanizing language, sensational stories, misleading information, and racial stereotypes to provoke emotional reactions from viewers. These inaccurate narratives, not real data on crime, exacerbate the anxieties and fears of ordinary citizens. 

Tech pundits and politicians take advantage of these public perceptions to fear monger and pose surveillance technologies as the solutions to public anxieties. These efforts hardly mitigate people’s fears. The CEO of Evolv, the scanners used in the New York City subway surveillance system pilot, stated that subways are “not a good use case” for the company’s technology because there are electromagnetic interference concerns from being underground.

Moreover, institutions already using the scanners report inaccurate alerting. A Bronx hospital found that a quarter of all scans tripped the alarm, and of the positive scans, 85 percent were false positives and turned out not to be weapons. During the announcement news conference about the presence of the scanners in New York City’s subways, a reporter’s iPad case was mistaken for a weapon and set off the alarm. 

Widespread fear among citizens, especially those who have survived violence, is still an issue that needs to be addressed. Politicians must be honest about who in our society is the most vulnerable to harm—Black and brown people. For Black Americans across the country, especially young men, the chances of becoming the victim of violence remains disproportionately high. Homicide is the leading cause of death for Black males ages 10 to 24. According to a study by the Brady Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Black males from the ages 18 to 24 are 23 times more likely to die from firearm homicide than their white male peers. 

Though politicians capitalize on public fear to convince us that extra policing and surveillance are what make us safer, we know that isn’t true. Mayor Eric Adams and elected officials like him who urge increased policing and surveillance as the solutions to violence fail to acknowledge law enforcement as a very real threat to safety, Moreover, the realities of policing and surveillance tactics such as stop and frisk and their disproportionate impacts on Black and brown people offer no hope that new initiatives will be any different. 

At Common Justice we operate the first alternative-to-incarceration and victim-service program in the United States that focuses on violent felonies in the adult courts. We know the truth about safety from communities most impacted by violence—it doesn’t come from the police or our penal system. Instead, it comes from programs such as ours, which holds people accountable for the harm they cause while at the same time addresses some of the root causes of violence and harm. 

We cannot fall for politicians’ and the media’s narratives that new surveillance systems will ease the fears of the average citizen. When implemented, these technologies are ineffective at best and provide the basis for racial discrimination and harassment at its worst. We can’t keep fueling the exact systems that are creating harm to begin with. When we resist violent state institutions and their policies based on misleading narratives, we can create true safety and ease for everyday citizens. 

Sadia Saba is the social and digital media manager at Common Justice, where she executes digital strategy to change the narrative on violence and justice.