I'm likely to be downvoted to heck for this, but I think this is more complicated than folks want to make out. The privacy violations are a problem, the lack of oversight is a huge problem, and the sloppy police work is a disaster. Those constitute huge arguments against use of the cameras.
But we also live in a time when people "feel" that crime is out of control. (Even in places where the numbers say otherwise.) That feeling is not abstract -- it's led them to vote for terrible "tough on crime" politicians, right up to the chief lawbreaker himself. And while the failure modes of ALPRs are awful, it's hard to avoid the near-weekly "successes" reported on local news and local "police blotter" type newspapers and newsletters. I literally read them every week: Cops arrest wanted drug dealer after hit on license plate camera... Notorious west-side shoplifter arrested after brief chase when camera spots license plate...
Are they frequently catching the FBI's Top-10 most wanted, or solving murder cases? No, probably not. But the little stuff matters to a lot of people, and those people vote.
Being or knowing the victim of a false or malicious arrest due to technology failures is certainly enough to make anyone go militantly anti-camera. But there are also undeniably a pretty large population of people out there who are comforted by them, and the knowledge that if the "bad guys" come into their neighborhood, the cops are gonna get them.
I'm 100% for additional legal barriers, backstops and standards of evidence for the camera data to be used. But a wholesale removal of a tool perceived to be keeping communities safer may backfire in ways people are even less happy with. Perception may be reality here.
But we also live in a time when people "feel" that crime is out of control. (Even in places where the numbers say otherwise.) That feeling is not abstract -- it's led them to vote for terrible "tough on crime" politicians, right up to the chief lawbreaker himself. And while the failure modes of ALPRs are awful, it's hard to avoid the near-weekly "successes" reported on local news and local "police blotter" type newspapers and newsletters. I literally read them every week: Cops arrest wanted drug dealer after hit on license plate camera... Notorious west-side shoplifter arrested after brief chase when camera spots license plate...
Are they frequently catching the FBI's Top-10 most wanted, or solving murder cases? No, probably not. But the little stuff matters to a lot of people, and those people vote.
Being or knowing the victim of a false or malicious arrest due to technology failures is certainly enough to make anyone go militantly anti-camera. But there are also undeniably a pretty large population of people out there who are comforted by them, and the knowledge that if the "bad guys" come into their neighborhood, the cops are gonna get them.
I'm 100% for additional legal barriers, backstops and standards of evidence for the camera data to be used. But a wholesale removal of a tool perceived to be keeping communities safer may backfire in ways people are even less happy with. Perception may be reality here.
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