Automatic plate readers are helping stop crime
There’s a new crime-fighter in eastern Idaho. This hero doesn’t fly, leap buildings in a single bound, or wear a cape. It is, however, saving kidnapped kids and getting bad guys off the street every day.
It’s called an ALPR or Automatic License Plate Reader. The Madison County Sheriff’s Department has installed them in four patrol cars. As a patrolman cruises his area, if the reader picks up a license plate number that is wanted on the FBI database, the computer in the patrol car gets notified. The patrolman knows right away that car is of interest to law enforcement.
“It’s instant,” says Captain Cameron Stanford of the Madison County Sheriff’s department. “The vehicle drives by and it instantly reads it.”
“Stolen vehicles are the number one best use for this,” says Deputy Brandon Bestor, who has the system installed in his patrol car. “And then we’ve had lots of arrests for wanted people and we’ve been able to find people of interest for different crimes.”
“One time a male in California befriended a 15-year-old girl out east over Facebook,” says Captain Stanford. ” He ended up stealing a vehicle, picked her up and went through our area. We got a hit of a stolen vehicle. After interviewing him, we found out the female hadn’t even been reported as kidnapped yet. We were able to get her back to her parents safely,” he added.
In addition to ALPR on cars, Madison County has received grants to put cameras under several highway 20 overpasses. When dispatchers get a hit on the computer, they know to contact the closest patrol officer to check it out.
“Rexburg police has access to this information. So does Idaho Falls, Bonneville County and ISP,” says Captain Stanford.
Officers love the ALPR because it saves them so much time and helps catch the bad guys.
“With this, as soon as it dings it reads the vehicle and tells me right away if it’s a vehicle of interest,” says Deputy Bestor. Saves me a ton of time and I don’t have to manually type everything in.”
Captain Stanford says they do get some negative feedback sometimes. People fear big brother is watching. We checked out that concern with a constitutional expert. Dave Adler explains you have no privacy rights when it comes to the ‘outside’ of your car.
“Inside the car, that’s another story,” says Adler.
“While internal behavior inside a car is protected,” he continues,” the enforcement needs outweigh the privacy interests. We understand murders have been solved and children who have been abducted have been saved and other crimes have been solved by the virtue of the location of these cameras.”
The cameras cost about $30,000 each, which Madison County has been able to cover with grants.
