Solve Cases Faster, Cut Backlogs, and Avoid Burnout: The Power of a Smarter LPR

Smaller police departments face a unique challenge: limited staff, but no shortage of crime to address. Incidents don’t stop at city borders. Criminal activity spills over from metro areas, runs along major highways, and stretches across jurisdictions. Much of it even goes undetected because of jurisdictional blind spots and evolving criminal tactics. Despite limited resources, leaders and investigators are expected to solve cases quickly, manage backlogs, and prevent burnout across their departments. Still, there are only so many hours in a day and only so many officers to cover wide patrol areas.

Traditional license plate readers (LPRs) capture vehicle details and generate alerts, but they often fail to connect patterns in criminal activity. Bad actors are becoming increasingly sophisticated, using tactics like plate swaps, convoy travel, and cross-state activity that basic systems can’t always detect, which forces agencies to spend valuable hours manually piecing together patterns across cases and jurisdictions.

Flock’s smarter LPR, called Enhanced LPR, solves that challenge. As a simple software upgrade, it transforms existing license plate readers into a powerful investigative tool, without requiring new hardware. By applying artificial intelligence, Enhanced LPR links suspect vehicles to multiple crime scenes, uncovers accomplice vehicles, and highlights crime hotspots, helping law enforcement solve more cases faster, with the same number of officers.

Departments are already relying on this smarter LPR to overcome challenges that slow investigations and drain resources in everyday scenarios: 

Deconfliction

‍For law enforcement, wasted effort is a luxury they can’t afford. Enhanced LPR’s deconfliction capability ensures investigators know when another officer or even another agency is working the same suspect vehicle. 

Instead of duplicating efforts, agencies can coordinate, share intelligence, and strengthen their cases together. For example, if a rural sheriff’s office and a neighboring city police department are both investigating a car linked to burglaries, deconfliction helps them collaborate rather than chase leads separately. This builds stronger cases and creates a bigger impact on crime overall.

Connecting Incidents without a Known Suspect Vehicle

‍Not every case starts with a clear suspect vehicle. Agencies investigating a string of break-ins, vandalism, or thefts may only have the time and locations of incidents to work from. With Enhanced LPR’s Multi-Geo Search, investigators can enter those details and quickly see which vehicles were present across all incidents. This eliminates hours of manual review and provides a crucial lead in cases that would otherwise stall. One agency identified a homicide suspect in minutes that a standard LPR would have missed. The case moved forward quickly before the workload snowballed, and investigators were able to avoid weeks of manual effort.

Uncover Accomplice Vehicles‍

Criminals rarely act alone, and small departments often struggle to uncover the full scope of organized activity. Enhanced LPR’s Convoy Search identifies vehicles traveling together, which can reveal accomplices in retail theft rings, trafficking networks, or drug interdiction cases. A rural agency might stop one suspicious car, only to learn through Convoy Search that it’s part of a larger caravan involved in cross-county crime. This ability turns a single stop into an opportunity to dismantle broader criminal networks.

Empower Patrol to Make Arrests off a Hotlist Hit‍

Patrol officers are the front line, but they often lack the context to act strategically on hotlist alerts. Enhanced LPR changes that by allowing investigators to attach case notes, photos, and reports to each alert. For a small agency where officers wear many hats, this means patrol can make more informed stops and arrests. Instead of treating a hotlist hit as just another call, officers know the backstory; why the vehicle matters, what crimes it may be tied to, and how their action supports a bigger investigation. That clarity not only leads to better arrests but also boosts morale by giving officers a greater sense of purpose.

Optimize Patrol Resources and Staffing‍

With limited staff stretched thin, small agencies need to be strategic about where they deploy patrols. Enhanced LPR’s Hotlist Hotspot Insights highlight areas with the most hotlist activity, guiding leaders on where to allocate resources. For example, if multiple hits occur near a highway exit, a department can prioritize patrol coverage there rather than spreading officers evenly across their entire jurisdiction. This smarter deployment ensures that limited manpower is used where it has the greatest impact.

Detect Organized Crime‍

Organized crime often hides in plain sight, with suspects moving in convoys, participating in auto theft rings, or striking across multiple jurisdictions. These patterns can overwhelm small departments that don’t have the resources to track long-term trends manually. Enhanced LPR exposes these tactics, allowing agencies to identify broader networks and coordinate interdiction efforts. One county disrupted a narcotics pipeline by linking rental vehicles across multiple states, surfacing accomplices traveling together, and sending alerts when suspects crossed into their jurisdiction.

For a small-town police department dealing with a sudden uptick in stolen vehicles, Enhanced LPR can reveal whether they’re facing isolated incidents or part of a larger organized operation crossing city and state lines.

Solving More Cases with the Same Team

For small departments under pressure to deliver results, Enhanced LPR is a simple software upgrade that provides your investigators and analysts with the backup they need to identify links and accomplices that they wouldn’t have the bandwidth to find manually. It makes limited resources go further, without adding new hardware.

Ready to see how Enhanced LPR can help your agency close more cases with less strain? Speak with a Flock Safety Expert.