1Do you feel License Plate Recognition technology constitutes a violation of a persons expectation of privacy, or do you believe it is a reasonable tool for law enforcement to use?

2Should LPR technology be allowed for non-violent crimes and traffic infractions?

3. How would you feel if police secretly set up LPR on your street, hoping to catch a person or persons committing burglaries in the area, but also capturing your daily comings and goings?

TECHNOLOGY TALK Improving Crime Investigations with License Plate Recognition Technology By Tom Joyce, Lieutenant Commander of Detectives (Ret). New York Police Department, Vice President, Vigilant Solutions These days, many law enforcement officials are less worried about bro with detecting and preventing the serious crimes associated with gang and drug runners--but they face an uphill battle to do so. The most recent report from the FBI, released in late 2016, showed a 3.9 percent increase from 2014 to 2015 in the estimated number of vio- lent crimes. According to the report, In 2015, an estimated 1,197,704 violent erimes were committed around the United States, including 15,6% murders. Firearms were used in 71.5 percent of murders, as well as in 40.8 percent of robberies and 21.2 percent of aggravated assaults! In fact a number of US cities have gun homicide rates in line with the more deadly nations in the world. New York's gun murder rate has declined to just 4 per 100,000, but is still higher than Argentinas, while Newark's gun homicide rate (25.4 gun murders per 100,000 people) is in line with that of Colombia (27.1 gun murders per 100,000 people! The majonly of these serious crimes are not isolated incidents commit- ted by individual actors who are otherwise upstanding citizens-they're perpetrated by career criminals Studies suggest that the estimated 1.15 million gang memben in the approximately 24250 gangs across the United States are to blame for many violent and drug-related crimes! As one example, respondents in the National Youth Gang Survey sample reported approximately 2.000 gang homicides annually from 2007 to 2012 which, when coupled with PSI estimates for the same time period suggest that gang-related homicides typically accounded for around 13 percent of all homicides annually. In a typical year in the so-called "gang capital of Chl- capo and Los Angeles, around half of all homicides are gang related, and 63 percent of gangs across the United States are involved in drug trafficking What this means is that law enforcement officials need every available strategy and tool possible to drive down violent crime and drug trafficking in communities by getting the most egreglous offenders off the street and behind bars, thus preventing them from committing future crimes, One tool law enforcement agencies are turning to for this purposes liom plate recognition (LPR) technology, which uses fixed and mobile cameras to take photos of license plates, capturing the date and time of the photos, as well as GPS coordinates for where the photos were taken. Each plate image captured, along with the data for that image(date, time, loca tion), is stored in a database that authorized law enforcement personnel UPR as a standalone technology is weal for capturing lotse plates of wanted criminals or person of interest if they randomly drive by a camera even a chance encounter an end up closing a case because the LPRcaments eqante toda eyes on the street. However, the smartest way to use LPR is by pairing its data with analytics to create more leads Closing the Loop After a crime has been committed and investigators are trying to locate the offender, there are three critical components needed a person of inter est, a vehide, and the time and place of the crime. By using LPR and analyties as the backbone of an investigation, an offi- cercanmalch known data against historical data and create a lead, using multiple query types to track down suspects by locating historical detections on known vetode of interest Identifying vehicles that were in close proximity to multiple crime scenes and the times of the crimes, to assist in identifying offenders (eg, for crimes like a station robberies or residential burglaries where offenders often target multiple similar locational identifying vehicles that consistently travel and parkin dose pro cimity of identified subject vehides of interest creating real-time alerts for vehicles of interest As a starting point, LPR system queries allow investigating officers to link one piece of data to another and create connection. For cample, an officer may know only a vehicle of interest's plate number, but he or she can search historical data to find where that plate has been detected in the past whether the vehicle was present at the scene of a crime, or whether there are alibis or witnesses associated with the plate. Even a lend that includes a partial plate number can help if there are additional data like a dato, location, or time of a crime that an officer can compare with the partial plate information If an officer knows only the address where a crime took place, he or she then can run a geographical query on the location with historical LPR detections to determine what if any vehicles were at the location during the time a crime occurred or even recently before or after the crime occurred. It is well known that many offenders surveil targets before the Case in Point: Maryland State Police In 2014, the Maryland State Police located and apprehended four individuals trafficking large volumes of cocaine and marijuana between the US. Southwest and various locations on the East Coast One of the suspects had been working with three co-conspirators to distributo multi-thousand-pound quantities of drugs, including cocaine and marijuana. When the suspect relocated to the Southwest in 2012, he worked with his conspirators to package and ship large quantities of drugs to various cities on the East Coast, creating a massive network of drug trafficking stretching halfway across the United States Using LPR detections, historical data and data analysis to su plement other investigative finding the Maryland State Police collected enough information to obtain search warrants, which resulted in the discovery of large sums of cash and cash bank deposits and almost half a million dollars in jewelry, firearms, and Assorted body armor, as well as various quantities of marijuana and cocaine All four individuals were arrested pleaded guilty, and received prison sentences ranging from 10 to 14 years on charges related to drug possession and distribution, as well as monny laundering Note "High Volume Drug Traffic Apprimended Using Historical Lite Reader Data NLETS. August 21, 2014 www.policechiefmagazine.org 14 THE POLICE CHIEF/MARCH 2018 crime, sometimes for days, and return after the crime has been committed With a boost from LPR data and analytics, law enforcement agencies to evaluate police response are better equipped to dismantle drug trafficking organizations and gang For cample, Ifa bank robbed and a witness identified the color make, through organizational takedown in short-term conspigeses. Once and model of the getaway vehide, then the investigator can run a query on all known gang members are identified, agencies can pick apart gang-penica whides that parled near the bank over the past 30 days and narrow potem by person--and send those culpable to prison, moving them from the street til matches down to a single vehide of the right color, make, and model and reducing crime and further victimations In a good LPR system that complies with privacy requirements, includ- Ing the Gramm-Leach-Blley Act (LBA) and the Divers Privacy Probe tion Act (DPPA), the investigator's options in the LPR system end here Tous les morcea The system will have only two of the three triangle points the vehide methods thur Conan identification Information and location it was detected in, but no person pode stoffer ally identifiable information because IPR data systems compliant with privacy laws currently do not contain this information. It is important for an agency to have stringent best practices and defined policies around the running of any queries, as well as to use a system with audit trail capabili Notes: ties to ensure compliance with peivacy laws and to allow oversight This "pal Latest Crime Statistics Released Increase in Volent Crime, Decrease in will protect the agency as well as the privacy rights of individuals Property Crime news release September 242016 //wwigown The Investigator must then go to a second, highly regulated system, Hatest-crime statistics protected under GLRA and DPPA, that requires a permissible purpose to Richard Mocida, "un Volmer in US Cities Compared to the Deadliest access the name of the person to whom a vehide is registered Nations in the World."CityLab January 22, 2013.htp//www.dylab.com/ Using LPR data in conjunction with other data from other law enforce equality/2013/01/gun volce-comdadi-nation world/4412 ment investigatory systems, an investigator can determine the registered Stein, "Gang Member Statistics 2017. https://www.com/ driver and done the loop, which can mean getting more criminals of the ping stati streets. Early identifications lead to eatly apprehensions, which lead to National Gang Center. Number of Gang Related Humiddeld further crimes not being committed and, in some cases, lives saved. Gong Survey https://www.nationalgangeenter.gord/Sarvy Analysia/ Measuring them of Gang-Problemformiddenumber, FL, UOB, C A New Solution to an Old Problem United Stat 2011. tible 1, Metp://go/atmetests/2011eithe Most violent crimes dont occur in a vacuum, they are often tied to 2011/table/table-1. gang activity or committed by career criminals. National Cang Center Number of Gang Related Homicides By increasing the amount of data and analytics a law enforcement "Gang Members agmey has access to the more vehicles, person of interest and locations Game-Leach-Blley Act, Pub. L. 106-102, 113 Sat, 1338 (1999 Divers E can identity, and the more connections investigators can make between way Protection Act of 1994 18 USC 2721 (1994) separate crimes to identify additional leads