Flock ALPRs Undermine Our Police
Municipalities around the US, including right here in San Jose, CA, are opting for Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) such as Flock cameras. ALPR systems' ability to track cars around the city, proponents say, will mean fewer people feeling let down by police. However, these cameras achieve the opposite, undermining rather than bolstering the ability of SJPD to stop crime. The department must take the time to deal with those coming mainly for the promise of spying on people, time that should go toward police work. Meanwhile, we're left facing two major consequences: a police department facing both worsening public perception, and fewer hours in the day left to actually address crime.
ALPRs attract the kind of people who, instead of addressing public safety, stalk their ex-girlfriends. We don't want the kind of police department where officers spy on previous employers. And their ex-girlfriends.. And these are just the instances we find out about, where departments did not manage to avoid or get rid of these would-be stalkers. We cannot continue forcing police to deal with bad actors like this. We deserve the safety that follows from a department unhindered by these creeps.
Again and again, we see that ALPRs enable abusers and sex pests to ruin police departments' reputations (and, as usual, to stalk their ex-girlfriends). In some cases these creeps don't even need to get into the police department to stalk their ex-girlfriends, able to take advantage of the tech thanks to a relative who was an officer, as we saw right here in San Jose.
As if the stalkers and sex pests weren't bad enough, the negatives of ALPRs on police do not stop with them. They redirect resources away from the opioid epidemic. The siphoning of opioid related funds has already happened across the country, from Ohio to Florida; even our neighbors in Campbell have seen their opioid settlement funds instead go toward surveillance offerings from Peregrine. The Peregrine system relies on — you guessed it — ALPRs from Flock and Axon. The damage that ALPRs cause to our police must not be underestimated.
Let's stop making the already-difficult job of our police even harder with ALPRs. We should not favor the stalkers, abusers, and sex pests attracted by the promise of surveillance. We cannot fault the public for declining trust in our police department when we see the damage flowing from our technology choices. Reject the tech that undermines law enforcement. Side with the good guys in SJPD, not with Flock cameras.