The Memphis Police Department will soon begin construction of a command center to monitor video feeds from the citywide network of surveillance cameras, according to a newspaper report.
Slated for 2007, the command center is made possible by a $6.5 million Homeland Security grant, and will be similar to the Real Time Crime Center built by New York police, though smaller in size, according to the The Commercial Appeal. The new structure will be located at the Memphis Criminal Justice Center, which will have to be remodeled to accommodate the new facility. Police already possess the video equipment.
The project was inspired in part by Memphis Police Director Larry Godwin’s recent tour of New York’s $11 million Real Time Crime Center. New York’s drop in crime was attributed to a degree to the police command center, which is capable of processing enormous amounts of police data quickly and transmitting it to officers in the field, the newspaper reports.
In addition to the video surveillance, Memphis’ center will have a database linking law enforcement agencies internally with one another and externally with other state authorities, the newspaper reported.
