Feature in Gwinnett Daily Post by Curt Yeomans. March 18, 2022. View the full story here.  

Officials from the Gwinnett Place and Sugarloaf community improvement districts are pointing to an investment in license plate-reading cameras as the reason why crimes in the CIDs dropped significantly in a one-year span.

Both CIDs expanded their use of Flock Safety’s Automatic License Plate Reading cameras, which Gwinnett County police officers based out of the county police department’s Central Precinct used to solve several crimes during the course of 2021. There are 63 cameras located in the Gwinnett Place CID while the Sugarloaf CID has 15.

“Having Flock Safety cameras at our disposal has been invaluable to the department and the statistics prove it,” said Maj. Rafanelli, who is the commander of the Central Precinct. “Both Gwinnett Place CID and Sugarloaf CID have been extremely helpful in placing cameras throughout their districts so we cannot only solve but also help to prevent crimes from taking place.”

The license plate-reading cameras operate 24 hours a day and send law enforcement “Hot List” alerts that identify stolen vehicles, stolen tags, people with warrants and endangered persons. Those alerts help officers quickly find these vehicles and people. The officers can also use the camera database to search for a suspect vehicle’s plate number, which can help investigators develop leads in cases.

In 2021 alone, Gwinnett police used the cameras to recover 104 stolen vehicles that were worth a total of $1.47 million and arrest 199 people. The officers also found 93 wanted persons and conducted 46 investigations that resulted in arrests by using the cameras. The officers also found 33 stolen tags by using the cameras. All of that resulted in a 53% decrease in commercial burglary, a 23% decline in car break-ins and a 5% decline in residential burglaries from 2020 to 2021, according to the CIDs.

“Keeping Sugarloaf CID community members safe is of the utmost importance and we’re so thankful to the Gwinnett County Police Department for collaborating with us as we installed our Flock Safety cameras around the district,” Sugarloaf CID Executive Director Alyssa Davis said. “The results we’re seeing are proof of what can happen when communities work together with law enforcement in conjunction with modern technology.”

The Gwinnett Place CID began installing Flock Safety cameras in 2020, and continued to expand their use last year.

“When the (Gwinnett Place CID) Board of Directors approved installation of Flock Safety cameras in the district we knew the investment would quickly provide positive results,” Gwinnett Place CID executive director Joe Allen said. “We are more than pleased with how the increased number of cameras and the daily CID-funded community patrols have helped keep visitors and the area’s over 27,000 employees safe.”

Rafanelli added, “the cameras have been a game-changer in our ongoing efforts to keep Gwinnett’s central business district at Gwinnett Place one of the safest locations in the County. The number one reason crimes go unsolved is that the police may not have sufficient evidence to solve the case, therefore the cameras are key tools in our fight against crime. (Gwinnett Place CID’s) camera locations are based on historical crime data and the experience of our officers patrolling the area.”

Learn more about Flock Safety's solution for improvement districts here.

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