LEWISTON – The security cameras are all in place, capturing images of life in local schools – but they don’t do police much good.

“We’ve never had a situation where we’ve had to rely on those cameras, and I hope we never will,” said Lt. Roger Landry. “But what if we do?”

Police and school officials are about a month from debuting a linked video network, connecting feeds from all of the city’s schools with the police department over fiber-optic lines. Those lines will be backed up with a wireless security network when the work is complete.

“I hope it’s wasted money,” Landry said. “It’s not something anybody looks forward to using, but we’re looking forward to getting it all done.”

The city has more than 70 cameras in the schools capturing video, including 32 in Lewiston High School. But the schools are not networked and if police want to see video taken from one of the cameras, they have to go to that school and pull up video saved to each camera’s digital recorder.

Next month, they’ll be able to pull up feeds from each camera from a desk in the police department any time they want, Landry said.

The city is connecting each camera to the police department via fiber-optic cable. Video will be stored on two servers in the police station – each large enough to store days-worth of video for up to 60 cameras.

“The benefit of all this is that we’ll have immediate access if something happens,” Landry said. “But we can look back, too. If a crime happens within one of those views, it will be recorded and we’ll be able to pull it back up later on.”

The city is using part of a Homeland Security grant through the Maine Emergency Management Agency to install a back-up wireless network connecting the schools and their cameras with police.

“That’s there in case the wires fail, or if something gets knocked out,” Landry said. It will also let police tap into the cameras from the city’s command vehicle.

“If there’s an incident and we need to see the condition right away, we have it right at our fingertips,” Landry said.

Police have 16 cameras installed around their Park Street station. Some cover Kennedy Park while another keeps watch over the station’s lobby. Each interview room has a camera, as well. The entire network, from schools and the police station, will be available in the duty sergeant’s room in the police station.

City Councilor Denis Theriault said he didn’t want to stop there. He hopes to see cameras installed in all of the city’s parking garages and on some street corners.

“We’ve had incidents of vandalism and break-ins at the garages, and I think this could help,” he said. “Financially, we can’t afford to put police everywhere we need them. But we can put cameras up, and I think we should.”