If the mall is today’s town center, then the electronic billboard in the Staten Island Mall is the equivalent of a public stockade.
Every six minutes, digital billboards in the Staten Island Mall will flash the photos of five convicted shoplifters for 15 seconds. These ads will appear on eight and nine-foot-tall plasma screens dubbed “Smart Screens,” that have a 65-inch digital display.
“I wanted to do something just to warn people who might have ideas about shoplifting,” Staten Island District Attorney Dan Donovan told Larry McShane, a staff writer at “The New York Daily News.”
The district attorney worked with Adspace Digital Mall Network to create the ad, which will appear on electronic billboards along with other ads promoting mall businesses.