Shaping Safer Cities

Why is Flock public safety technology the key to safer communities?

Case Clearance

In the US in recent years, only about 42% of violent crimes and 14% of property crimes were solved.1†

Deterrence

Increasing the perceived chance of getting caught for a crime is one of the more effective crime deterrents2† – more effective than the severity of punishment.3†

Prevention

Targeting vehicles linked to crime – particularly stolen vehicles, which are often used in the commission of other crimes – prevents future crime.4†

Force Multiplier

Crimes go unsolved primarily due to lack of evidence and police resources5† - and police hiring and retention is at an all time low.6† Cameras and LPR are a light lift, cost effective solution to these limitations.

Critical Evidence

Technology that records license plates and vehicles at key ingresses and egresses of neighborhoods provides law enforcement with essential evidence that they wouldn’t otherwise have.

Removing Bias

The presence of witnesses increases the chances of crimes being solved7†, but witnesses are often not present. Research shows that eyewitnesses can be unreliable and prone to bias. Using cameras as witnesses helps solve these problems.8†

Constitutional

  • Cameras collect objective evidence - this helps protect our rights.
  • License plates are issued by the government for the purpose of identifying vehicles in public places for safety reasons.
  • Courts have consistently found that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in a license plate on a vehicle on a public road, and photographing one is not a Fourth Amendment search.10†
  • Flock Safety’s default is that all data is automatically deleted on a rolling thirty day basis.

Ethical

  • Flock Safety builds in accountability mechanisms. Users must input a “search reason” in order to perform a search, and the user and search reason are stored indefinitely for auditing to ensure proper use.
  • We offer customers a free and optional “transparency portal,” where they can automatically display information about their use of the technology to keep their community fully informed.

Tailored to Communities

  • Flock offers dynamic products that abide by state and local laws.
  • Flock strongly encourages agencies considering adopting this technology to take this proposal to their city council or governing body so that it is a democratically made decision that the public can weigh in on.

Latest news

Legislation

Virginia Court Rules Footage from LPRs Do Not Violate the 4th Amendment

Read More
Elected Officials

Why San Leandro’s Civic Leaders Chose Flock for Responsible Crime-Solving

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Elected Officials

Court Rules That LPR Can Be Reasonably Used Within the Bounds of the 4th Amendment

Read More

Resources

1
Average over the last 5 years: 41.7% of violent crimes solved, 14.5% of property crimes solved. 2020 - 2023: FBI, Crime Data Explorer, "Crime in the United States Annual Reports." 2019: FBI: UCR, "Crime in the United States." Background: Jeff Asher, "Under The Clearance Rate Data Hood" (January 15, 2024).
2
Raymond Paternoster, “How Much Do We Really Know About Criminal Deterrence,” Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 100, no. 765 (2010) and Daniel Nagin, “Deterrence in the Twenty-First Century” Vol. 42, No. 1, Crime and Justice in America 1975–2025 (August 2013), pp. 199-263.
3
Steven Durlauf and Daniel Nagin, “Imprisonment and Crime: Can Both Be Reduced?” Criminology and Public Policy 10, no. 10 (2011).
4
97% of car thieves are also charged with other crimes. IACP, “Vehicle Crime: A High Impact Crime.”
5
See Manhattan Institute, Anthony A. Braga, “Improving Police Clearance Rates of Shootings: A Review of the Evidence” (July 20, 2021); William N. Evans, Emily G. Owens, COPS and crime, Journal of Public Economics, Volume 91, Issues 1–2, 2007, Pages 181-201, ISSN 0047-2727, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2006.05.014 and The Atlantic, Reihan Salam and Charles Fain Lehman, “We’re Underfunding the Police,” March 8, 2023. 
6
NBC News, “The U.S. is experiencing a police hiring crisis” (September 2023); International Association of Chiefs of Police, “The State of Recruitment: A Crisis for Law enforcement.”
7
McEwan, J. Thomas. Evaluation of the Phoenix, Arizona, Homicide Clearance Initiative, 2003-2005. Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2011-07-05. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR26081.v1
8
75% of wrongful convictions involved eyewitness misidentification. Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University, “Reevaluating Lineups: Why Witnesses Make Mistakes and How to Reduce the Chance of Misidentification.” See also Gross, Samuel R. and Shaffer, Michael and Registry of Exonerations, National, Exonerations in the United States, 1989–2012 (June 25, 2012). U of Michigan Public Law Working Paper No. 277, 7th Annual Conference on Empirical Legal Studies Paper, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2092195 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2092195. 
9
The Atlantic, Derek Thompson, “Six Reasons the Murder Clearance Rate Is at an All-Time Low” (July 7, 2022).
10

Appellate and federal district courts in at least fourteen states have upheld the use license plate readers as constitutional, as well as the 9th and 11th circuits. See, for example, Commonwealth v. McCarthy, 478 Mass. 951 (2019), United States v. Yang, 917 F.3d 996 (9th Cir. 2019). Why:

  1. There is no subjective or objective expectation of privacy in the exterior of a vehicle or a license plate in public.
    • “[When the defendant traveled on public streets in a car, he] voluntarily conveyed to anyone who wanted to look the fact that he was traveling over particular roads in a particular direction, the fact of whatever stops homemade, and the fact of his final destination.” United States v. Knotts, 460 U.S. 276 (1983). 
    • “It strains credulity to argue that a person who, on the one hand, has no reasonable expectation of privacy in his vehicular movements, would, on the other hand, have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the license plates permitting him to make such vehicular movements. The very purpose of the license plate is to identify the vehicle openly for the enforcement of laws relating to safety and the operation of motor vehicles.” Commonwealth of Virginia v. Jonah Leon Adams, Suppression Hearing, Twelfth Judicial Circuit, Chesterfield, Aug. 1, 2024.
  2. LPRs, being limited in time (limited data retention) and space (still images taken at fixed locations), cannot record the whole of anyone’s movements for a prolonged period of time.
    • “When reviewing the Flock database, police officers could not see the route Martin allegedly took to and from the robberies because the Flock system does not record the totality of one's movements…The Flock system is not meant to ‘track’ or ‘monitor’ the entirety of an individual's movements during a particular car trip, much less through the activities of their daily life. The Flock cameras are strategically" placed to capture images of locations, not individuals…” United States v. Martin, Suppression Hearing, Eastern District of Virginia, Richmond, Oct. 11, 2024, pages 40-41.