Increased police surveillance will leave us with “Broken Windows” on steroids.

Across the United States, cities are spending a larger share of their available money to buy and deploy surveillance technology. From cameras to AI-powered microphones, and from automatic license plate readers to drones and robots, cities are responding to calls for better security with security theater. That may lead to a few more arrests, but it does little to ensure sustainable safety. Forcing residents of higher-crime neighborhoods to live under constant, all-seeing digital surveillance will neither protect people from the systemic dangers they face, including police brutality, nor will it mend their fractious relationship with the police who are sworn to protect and serve them.

Ever since fingerprint analysis came along, police work has become more reliant on technology and less on citizen engagement—a development that suggests a lesser reliance on witnesses and people who know citizens well. This problem has been exacerbated over the past 50 years by the proliferation of surveillance cameras; detectives have less incentive to work with the people of a community to identify a suspect when any doorbell camera can do it for them. And why should police encourage the arduous task of organically organizing a community around violence prevention when they can send a search warrant to a technology company and get the geolocation of every single cellphone on the block?

Yes, people who live in communities affected by crime and constant police presence may be unwilling to devote their time and emotional energy to testifying or cooperating with police—but there are several reasons for this. At a time when a black woman can be shot in her own home by the very police officers she called out of fear, is it really surprising that police have difficulty getting the community's cooperation? Especially when there's no guarantee that the cop asking for a statement isn't someone who's been fired from a dozen other police departments for excessive use of force. This isn't a problem that can or should be fixed simply by putting up more cameras.

This disconnect between the community and those sworn to protect it creates a feedback loop in which it's much easier for police departments to install a ton of cameras and license plate readers than to invest in building trust and cooperation. And they can afford it — they have enormous sums of money available for the technology from private donors, police foundations, the federal government and an increasingly large portion of city budgets.

People want security, but not necessarily more police and surveillance. Surveillance is just the only solution politicians often offer when citizens demand more security, so people will take what they can get.

And there is little evidence that this mass of networked surveillance infrastructure actually reduces crime rates or increases feelings of security — in part because so many statistics on the effectiveness of this technology are compiled by companies that sell cameras. They may get individual convictions — but reducing crime rates in a community or city? Unlikely.

One could point to cities around the world that have lower violent crime rates than the U.S., such as London, where CCTV is everywhere. But let's be honest: London is different from American cities in many ways other than cameras. For one thing, it's pretty difficult to buy a gun in Britain. For another, England has a social safety net, free healthcare, and comparatively more robust public housing programs—the lack of which the U.S. government has identified since the 1960s as a major cause of crime, urban inequality, and social unrest.

In short, there are other things we as a society should spend money on if we want to sustainably increase security for everyone.

The harm of surveillance should not be dismissed as a mere “trade-off,” as if privacy and security are mutually exclusive. There are many factors that contribute to feeling safe in a neighborhood—lighting, pedestrians, open bars and restaurants—that have nothing to do with surveillance. And yet we are frequently asked to dismiss constant surveillance as a necessary inconvenience. It is more than that. U.S. history is replete with the harms of surveillance—from the FBI’s illegal surveillance, disruption, and extortion of the civil rights movement under J. Edgar Hoover, to the surveillance of Muslims after 9/11, to our current crisis of pervasive surveillance in the wake of the criminalization of abortion. All of these moments were made possible by bipartisan building of surveillance capacity at the local, state, and federal levels.

Increased surveillance gives police more opportunities to abuse their power and exploit people in poor neighborhoods. With constant surveillance, even the smallest infraction or offense can be punished. And when only some neighborhoods are monitored, vulnerability to police intervention is not evenly distributed; in one neighborhood, people can safely run a red light or litter, while in another, they cannot for fear of the omnipresent police. Let's not forget one of the lessons of Ferguson: cities too often use mass fines to cover municipal budget deficits. If a city needs revenue from traffic tickets and only some neighborhoods are subject to mass surveillance, it's safe to assume that we know which neighborhood has borne the brunt of those tickets in the past and will continue to do so.

Can we really trust the police to use this power solely to track down suspects in the most violent crimes? After all, so many surveillance devices—from drones to cell phone simulators—were introduced as necessary tools in extreme situations, only to slowly trickle down into everyday life. That's why you see the New York Police Department's Counterterrorism Division monitoring turnstiles on the subway.

In short, we advocate for restraint on police surveillance because we are not only concerned about a new COINTELPRO law. We are also concerned about a digital version of broken windows policing: a high-tech world in which law enforcement can maximize punishment for minor offenses without ultimately making communities significantly safer.

Cities have been tightening surveillance measures in their communities for years, but gun violence has other causes: the availability of firearms, underfunding of public programs, lack of economic opportunity, and other environmental and social factors.

No one wants to live in a community terrorized by gun violence, and the government must do more to solve the problem. At some point we must ask ourselves: When can we try a different solution to this problem that does not rely on policing and surveillance? With 50 to 60 percent of the city's budget going to policing and enough cameras to monitor every street, what will surveillance advocates demand next if gun violence still exists?

There are so many other, more innovative methods cities can use to try to curb violence in communities—methods that haven't already been tried countless times. More funding is yielding exciting results for programs that focus on community-based violence interruption programs. These strategies take a public health approach, proactively reaching out to those most at risk of gun violence—rather than waiting to punish them after the fact through security camera footage.

This new model of security does not involve constant surveillance and excessive digital policing. Equating surveillance with security only takes into account a fraction of what “security” means for everyone. You cannot protect people from harm if part of what you offer them is another kind of Damage.