Property management companies have a commitment to fulfill for tenants and clients — to keep them safe from unwanted intruders and vandals.

As a property or community manager, chances are you already have some type of security camera system in place. Whether it’s a gate, a controlled access entry system, or traditional security cameras, these are intended to help you fulfill your promise to your tenants. Several of your residents might even have their own home security cameras as well, like doorbell cameras.

However, while footage from a doorbell camera is helpful in showing when a crime happened, many communities lack the type of security camera system that can deliver the evidence police need to make an arrest and close the case.

In an Oakland, California neighborhood this June, a car drove up to a house under renovation. Homeowners weren’t home, but their doorbell cameras picked up a disturbing conversation.

The car’s passengers were discussing coming back later to break into the home.

This Oakland neighborhood also had Flock Safety cameras installed to protect their community. When the homeowner checked their doorbell camera and heard the conversation, they immediately called their local police, then the HOA board.

Using the timeframe of the incident and what the vehicle looked like from the doorbell camera footage, an HOA board member pulled up Flock footage of the suspects’ vehicle. Paired with the suspects’ recorded conversation, Flock’s footage of the vehicle and its license plate were exactly what police needed to carry out an investigation.

“Flock helped give our neighborhood peace of mind. We know police have the vehicle license plate — enough for them to ID the suspects and make sure they don’t break into our homes or other homes in the community.”

— Cody, Oakland Neighborhood HOA Board Member

When a crime or incident like this happens, your hope as a property or community manager is to hand over evidence to police as quickly as possible so you can accomplish two things:

1. Get back to keeping your residents happy

Most of the time, you’ll find out about a crime from a resident phone call. Then, you have to drop everything to gather enough details and facts to hand over to detectives. Between calling residents to gather information, property visits, and time spent looking through video footage, you’re looking at a minimum of 3-5 hours out of your day.

If you manage multiple properties, you’ll most likely experience an average of 3 incidents a week. That’s 3 days a week where you spend half your day working to get details over to police!

If you have the right neighborhood camera system, you can cut down the time you spend trying to help solve crime and get back to your other daily duties.

2. Prevent the incident from happening again

The more you can help police solve your property crime cases, the less crime you’ll see.

Law enforcement agencies have said that other would-be perpetrators quickly get the message when a criminal gets caught. And with visible reminders that your neighborhood is watching, like security cameras and signs, criminals are less likely to target your properties.

The first step to achieving these goals: A camera system built for neighborhoods

If you or your residents have existing doorbell cameras, you’re already one step closer to achieving these goals. Traditional security cameras help you see when an incident occurred and what the scene looked like at the time of the crime.

However, video evidence of a person or face alone can’t always solve a case. Law enforcement agencies say facial recognition isn’t helpful in identifying and tracking down a perpetrator.

When police get involved, they’ll need actionable evidence to find the criminal—concrete details they can search in an existing system that will help them take the next step to close the case.

You need a camera system sophisticated enough to read and capture these details. This system should promote community-wide safety abd should be able to identify the license plate number of a vehicle.

License plate reading cameras capture exactly that—a license plate. These cameras are a fast and efficient solution to getting the right evidence over to the police.

Instead of spending 3-5 hours gathering evidence, a quick search by partial or full plate number will pull up the footage you need. You can pair this with other security camera footage to help police build the case and take it off your hands.

With just a few keystrokes, you’ll have the exact evidence police need to solve the case. The faster you get evidence over to police, the faster you can take the case off your desk. And with more cases solved, you’ll see fewer repeated incidents in the future. Your residents will feel safer and happier calling your property home.

If you’re a property or community manager looking for a neighborhood security system that gets results, consider Flock Safety — the license plate reading camera that solves crime.

Besides capturing license plates, Flock Safety also reads and captures attributes of a vehicle that detectives look for as case leads: color, type of vehicle, plate state, and the timeframe the image was captured.

Cut down your time spent searching even more by filtering irrelevant images like objects or registered residents out of your search.

Ready to take your neighborhood safety to the next level? Book a demo today!