Connecticut Cops Use COVID-19 Cash for Cameras.
Connecticut towns and cities are spending millions of dollars of federal stimulus funds to install police surveillance systems in local communities, enabling law enforcement officials to more easily track people’s movements and potentially solve crimes.
Public records show that at least five municipalities in the state have allocated millions of dollars provided through the American Rescue Plan Act to equip local police departments with a variety of surveillance technology, which has raised concerns about privacy and civil liberties in the past.
The purchases of the new surveillance equipment were widely supported by local elected leaders in many towns, but in some instances, the spending prompted questions among local residents about whether the federal funding could be put to better use.
Patrick Daley, the police chief in Norwich, said his department had plans to add more surveillance cameras already, but it would have taken the town years to finance those purchases without the federal money.
The same is true in Newington.
“If that money wasn’t there for us, we wouldn’t have been able to do this,” said Bill Jameson, a lieutenant with the Newington Police Department. “That would have been a lot for the town to approve.”
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The American Civil Liberties Union and similar organizations have raised concerns in recent months about the proliferation of police surveillance tools throughout the state.
Claudine Constant, the public policy and advocacy director for the ACLU of Connecticut, argued that the purchase of surveillance cameras and license plate readers was a “knee-jerk reaction” to people’s worries about crime.
Constant, who previously served on the Hartford City Council, questioned whether adding or expanding surveillance networks is the most effective strategy in making communities safer.
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The American Rescue Plan Act, Constant pointed out, gave local leaders broad leeway in how to use millions of dollars in federal funding to improve their communities. That money, she argued, would be more effective if it was used to counteract poverty, unemployment and housing insecurity — all of which can contribute to crime in a community.
“What we really need to be doing is looking at the root causes of why things break down in our communities, and it’s because people aren’t appropriately supported,” she said. “They don’t have access to quality, well-paying jobs. They don’t have access to stable, affordable housing. They don’t have access to quality public schools.”
“If we really stop and listen to what people need, it’s not investing in more police power,” she said.
The same point was made by a handful of residents in New London last fall as local leaders in that city considered how to spend the $26.2 million in federal funding it received.
So basically even money that was supposed to help those impacted by the pandemic can be redirected to enlarge/empower/embolden the police state.
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