Neighbors United

Policing with Automatic License Plate Recognition

The Pico Neighborhood Council, along with our neighbors to the southeast, the Mid City Neighborhood Council, voted and approved the purchase of an Automatice License Plate Recognition (ALPR) unit to be installed in one of the Wilshire Division squad cars by early summer.  This bold step will assist a mobile LAPD unit by giving them a more efficient way to run numerous license plates in real time without taking away from their regular duties. All done automatically and in the background.

By tackling the very heart of the criminals’ ability to travel, a whole range of criminality can be prevented. Volume crimes such as auto-crime and burglary at one end of the spectrum, right up to terrorism, drug-trafficking and homicide at the other end can be more effectively policed using Automatic License Plate Recognition (ALPR) technology.

Research has shown that patrol officers equipped with the technology can be as much as 12x as effective, in terms of performance, than officers working without it. This will deliver reductions in crime, enhanced community safety and safer roads.

The new mobile unit will have the most advanced and accurate Automatic License Plate Recognition (ALPR) software available worldwide. It works by capturing digital license plate images as they pass a camera, whether mobile or fixed.

The plates are automatically scanned and cross-checked in real time against multiple local,regional, statewide and, if appropriate, national databases to identify vehicles that are of interest to the authorities.

The databases include auto theft, felony warrants, parking violations, or any other license plate-oriented databases, such as Amber Alerts, NCIC downloads, etc., that LAPD wishes to use.  In fact, the software can access multiple databases simultaneously and report not only matches but which database contained the vehicle of interest.

When a positive match is received, officers are alerted by an audio and/or visual alarm. They, then, respond to the "hit" in the appropriate manner for that agency. Until an alert occurs, the system operates in the background, allowing them to perform their regular police activities.

With potential budgetary shortfalls and possible reductions in city services, Pico NC felt it a necessary step in striving to keep the community safe by providing our LAPD with such a useful, powerful and efficient piece of technology.

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At the May 13th meeting of the Pico Neighborhood Council, board members voted unanimously to pass a motion (click here to read the motion) demanding that the city council work to finish the ordinance that started in 2005 dealing with medical marijuana dispensaries.

Refer to the article "Where There's Smoke There's . . . . Marijuana?" for further background on this problem.

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