By Gavin Newsom
San Francisco Examiner

Although crime is down in almost every major category in San Francisco, the homicide rate has risen here, as it has in most big cities, to unacceptable levels. To improve public safety, my administration has proposed a number of new initiatives, including a pilot program of placing security cameras in high crime areas. This technology has been deployed in other U.S. cities and in other countries, and the results vary from very effective to only slightly effective. In the United Kingdom, where the cameras were pioneered, crime dropped dramatically in most of the areas where cameras were used.