Chicago's multi-million-dollar POD cameras do little to solve most crimes, investigation finds

CHICAGO (WLS) -- In an effort to solve the city's violent crimes, the Chicago Police Department placed their bets on a network of so-called police observation devices. These sophisticated surveillance cameras were meant to be a game changer, one that would "stop violent crime before it occurs."

But two decades, and hundreds of millions of dollars later, an Illinois Answers Project and Chicago Tribune investigation found the devices do little to solve most crimes. Despite the cost, the city has not done any comprehensive analysis of the program. So, Illinois Answers and the Tribune did their own assessment of Chicago's POD camera program.

After filing more than 100 open records requests and analyzing more than a dozen datasets, the investigation found police rarely credit these cameras with helping solve cases, even for the most serious crimes. For example, videos from Chicago police's core inventory of roughly 4,400 surveillance cameras appeared to help solve, at best, 3.5% of 2023's homicides.

Officers don't download video for most serious, unsolved crimes that occur on streets and sidewalks, the kind of crimes for which POD cameras were supposed to shine. Police data offers no record of video downloads in half of such open homicides, nearly three-fourths of open shootings and more than 90% of open robberies last year. The city didn't download any footage from more than 1,000 POD cameras in 2023.

A city-conducted study found cameras can be key crime-fighting tools if officers watch them in real time. But with so many cameras, and the Chicago Police Department's ongoing struggle to fill officer vacancies, the vast majority of cameras go unwatched.

You can read more on the investigation into Chicago's POD program at illinoisanswers.org.