Our country’s police departments are under immense pressure to keep crime rates low despite whittled-down budgets and a reduction in staffing.

“For us, a game day activity is no small matter,” says James (Jimmy) Johnson, Assistant Vice President for Campus Safety at the University of Texas at Austin.

No kidding – Longhorn football games regularly sell out, hosting more than 100,000 fans in the Darrel K Royal (DKR)-Texas Memorial Stadium, not counting the small army of vendors, staff, security personnel and law enforcement that keep operations running smoothly.

Privately owned surveillance cameras are increasingly providing leads to law enforcement during investigations, and police departments, such as the Williamson County, Texas, sheriff’s office, are encouraging the public to register their video surveillance cameras.

More police and resident interactions in St. Louis will be captured by body cameras by the end of the year as eight area police departments jointly landed a $400,000 federal grant to equip about 260 officers with body cameras.

Officials in Dubuque, Iowa, are considering linking security camera networks owned by the city of Dubuque, Dubuque County and Dubuque Community Schools with the goal of helping first responders during emergencies.

A new ordinance in Madison, Mississippi, requires external security cameras on the buildings of all retail locations; businesses were given until March 2018 to comply with the ordinance.

In San Francisco, the Union Square Business Improvement District launched an outdoor security camera program in 2012, starting with six privately-owned cameras, and it has since raised more than $3 million in grant money and outfitted 40 property owners with cameras, extending the network to around 350 cameras that share footage with police.

In November 2017, Raymond Kelly addressed security industry professionals and enterprise security leaders at the ISC East tradeshow in New York City. He discussed public-private partnerships, community involvement, the changing nature of terrorism, and the need for business continuity and preparedness training with the audience and, later, in an interview with Security magazine.