Cameras survey Chicago's toughest blocks, but do they reduce crime?: San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has cited Chicago's experience in arguing for an expansion of his city's camera surveillance program, and even test-drove one of Chicago's cameras during a 2005 visit.

But San Francisco differs from Chicago in one significant respect: In San Francisco, no one watches the action as the cameras record it. Police track down the footage later if they find out that a camera may have recorded a serious crime such as a homicide. No one shifts San Francisco's 70 cameras into better position in an emergency.

In Chicago, police use the cameras every day, all day. The monitors are watched in 25 district stations, and a dozen police cars are being outfitted to view feeds.

In an emergency operations center one recent Saturday night, a civilian former police officer sat in front of four monitors and 16 larger screens covering a wall, conducting "missions," whirling and zooming cameras in eight neighborhoods that had seen recent spasms of violence.

"Someone has to watch (the footage)," said Garbauski, who runs missions once a week. "If there were no arrests, people would say, 'There's no one watching this. It's just for show.' "

The San Francisco cameras installed at Newsom's request are facing scrutiny because they have helped police make just one arrest, for an attempted murder, in more than two years. A city law, prompted by civil liberties concerns, allows police to request footage only after a crime occurs.

Records show that, as of Sept. 18, San Francisco inspectors had asked for footage 58 times since the cameras were installed in mid-2005. Chicago police said that, as of the same day, they had used camera footage in 1,407 arrests, including at least five homicides, since the city began tracking data in February 2006.

San Francisco has spent about $500,000 on its cameras. The city's federally funded Housing Authority has an additional 178 cameras, which cost $200,000.

Chicago police have not tracked the cost of their cameras, the first of which was installed in 2003, but say more than $5.6 million has been spent on hardware alone. The city's emergency communications agency will spend $480,000 this year on camera watchers, a spokesman said.

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