Islip rolling out security cameras at beaches, parks, marinas ahead of beach season

The Town of Islip plans to roll out several public safety upgrades ahead of the summer season, including a new security camera system that town officials said will keep “residents safe.”

The overhaul will include the installation of new security cameras at beaches, parks and marinas, public safety commissioner Anthony Prudenti said. Two cameras, one at Bay Shore Marina and one at Roberto Clemente Park in Brentwood, will also be license plate readers. 

Out of the approximately 200 cameras townwide, 151 will be replaced. New equipment will be able to capture 180-degree views — an improvement from the current cameras that are stationary, Prudenti said.

Islip Town cameras are accessible to the Suffolk County Police Department, Prudenti said. 

The improvements “will help enable our public safety officers to keep residents safe and out of harm’s way,” Town Supervisor Angie Carpenter said in a statement.

The town plans to use a $163,000 state law enforcement grant to offset the costs of the cameras, she said. 

The upgrades will cost $449,000, set aside in past budget cycles, a town spokesperson said. 

Crime statistics specific to Islip Town were not immediately available, but recorded crime in Suffolk County dipped slightly last year, dropping from 20,876 incidents in 2022 to 20,744 in 2023, according to data from the state Division of Criminal Justice Services. 

The Suffolk County Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the new license plate readers in Islip. 

“It depends on where they place the cameras, but that can be a valuable tool and improve public safety of the community, in conjunction with the county police,” said Leonard Matarese, managing partner for the Center for Public Safety Management, a national public safety consulting firm with clients that include Long Beach and Garden City.

License plate readers specifically, he said, give police departments the ability to “identify vehicles that are stolen, or that are owned by people who have warrants, and so it expands the capability of the department to really identify what's going on.”

The New York Civil Liberties Union said it is “very concerned” about the potential invasiveness of the rollout, said Daniel Schwarz, senior privacy and technology strategist. 

At the base level, he said, the town should be transparent about which technologies are being used, how densely the cameras will be deployed, how much data they're collecting and how long the information will be saved.

It's also “important to look at the areas where those technologies are being deployed,” he added. “Historically, we know that particularly Black and Brown and poor neighborhoods are more likely to be targeted with police surveillance.”

Islip will join a growing roster of Long Island municipalities upgrading surveillance technology, such as the Town of Huntington, which will use license plate reading devices to scan vehicles at town beaches this summer.

Six police departments in Nassau and Suffolk counties also use license plate readers, according to data maintained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno. They're among 58 law enforcement agencies across the state that use the technology.

Additionally, three more Islip employees are now licensed to operate the town drone to watch for sharks off the coastline in the summer, bringing the total to four.

Sharks have “been on our radar the past two seasons,” Prudenti said. “It seems the feeder fish are a lot closer for whatever reason, and obviously when the bait fish are closer to the beach, that brings the predators closer to the beach.” 

Shark sightings and interactions have become more frequent off the shores of Long Island in recent years, with the predators drawn closer to shore by a growing population of the fish they eat, Newsday has reported.

By the end of last August, at least 13 swimmers had reported being bitten off the coast of Long Island in the past two summers. None of those injuries was considered serious.

The town also hopes to send more staff for police training to patrol the Fire Island boardwalk, a seasonal program entering its third year, and plans to add an electric vehicle to patrols at Brookwood Hall in East Islip.

By Brianne Ledda

brianne.ledda@newsday.com@brianne_ledda

Brianne Ledda covers personal finance and affordability for Newsday. She previously covered Southold and Greenport for The Suffolk Times and is a graduate of Stony Brook University.