The hookers, drug dealers and other bad actors who used to loiter on a Hilltop corner near Fred Tompkins' house have found other places to hang.
Turns out, they don't like being watched.
The Hilltop is one of five Columbus neighborhoods that have been under surveillance by Columbus police cameras for the past year.
Tompkins, 74, a former block-watch organizer, said the cameras, coupled with police patrols, are doing a good job of reducing crime.
The camera at Clarendon and Sullivant avenues has "cut down on the loitering, but not all the way," he said. "This was a corner for prostitution and drugs."
A year after more than 100 cameras were installed at a cost of $2.2 million, crime numbers have dropped in several categories in most of the neighborhoods, according to statistics from city officials.
"We were pretty happy," said Amanda Ford, assistant director of the Department of Public Safety.
Weinland Park saw the biggest change — a 46 percent drop — from 228 offenses to 122, according to Public Safety data comparing May and June with the same months last year. The number of assaults, for example, was cut in half.
The Hilltop saw a 44 percent decrease, from 96 offenses to 54.
Both the Mount Vernon and Linden neighborhoods saw declines of 14 percent.
But the area along E. Livingston Avenue saw an increase of 14 percent, with more burglaries, discharged firearms, drug offenses, felony larcenies, robberies and weapons offenses.
Twelve more cameras in four areas in the neighborhood will be added this year, Ford said. Security officers at City Hall monitor the cameras from Thursday night to Sunday morning, when crime typically is at its peak. But the cameras are always rolling, and footage up to 14 days old can be pulled.
Ford said the city doesn't track how often information from the cameras is used to help solve or prevent crimes, or how often an officer is dispatched after a security guard sees something suspicious.
Last fall, the Urban Institute's Justice Policy Center released a study of similar cameras in Baltimore, Chicago and Washington, D.C., showing a significant impact on crime when monitored by a trained staff and in the right locations.
Lead author Nancy La Vigne said that Columbus' strategy is well-considered.
"It sounds like Columbus is doing something right because they're considering when the incidents of crime are most likely to occur," she said. "They're targeting their resources."
Still, cameras are no substitute for officers on the street, she said.
Columbus officials don't know yet whether the presence of the cameras has shifted crimes to other locations, but the plan is to study that in the fall, Ford said.
La Vigne said she found no evidence of displacement in the cities she studied. She said the biggest complaint by residents after seeing the cameras in action was, "Why isn't there one in my neighborhood?"
The city council set aside $2.3 million in capital money for more cameras this year — $475,000 to add to the existing sites, with the rest for cameras in new neighborhoods.
"If you look at the data as a whole, there's a clear result from these cameras," said Dan Williamson, a spokesman for Mayor Michael B. Coleman. "The mayor's pleased and is encouraged that this has been a good investment and continues to be."
Joseph Shehada, owner of the Family Carryout at E. Livingston Ave and S. 22nd Street, acknowledged that the people who used to loiter outside his store might have moved to other spots, but what matters to him is that they're gone.
"There's nobody outside," he said. "It's clean."
Others aren't convinced that the cameras are worth the expense.
"The cameras are a waste," said Secret Sydnor, 18, as she walked out of a store at E. Whittier Street and Ohio Avenue. The South Side intersection is sandwiched between two cameras.
"There are still people getting away with stuff," she said. "There's better things they can spend their money on."
Those who have directly benefitted from the cameras are huge fans. A 41-year-old Hilltop woman, who asked not to be named because she worried about her safety in the neighborhood, said the cameras helped police catch a robber at the store where she works. She hopes the cameras can catch the person who hit her car and drove away outside the Smoke and Shop at S. Wayne and Sullivant avenues.
"It's a wonderful thing to have those cameras," she said.
Still, the cameras aren't her source of safety, she pointed out.
"What makes me feel safe are my two huge dogs."