License plate readers make our community safer

Technology has rapidly evolved in the past 19 years of my policing career. When I started, we worked without computers in our cars and looked up addresses in a map book.

As technology has advanced, law enforcement is leveraging new tools to keep communities safe. Criminals are very effective at using technology to victimize people and defeat our efforts to catch and prosecute them. Police departments must keep pace.

License plate readers specifically have been a hot topic recently. These cameras capture and read license plates, enabling law enforcement to quickly search for vehicles that are stolen, linked to human trafficking, or involved in other criminal activity. LPR technology also integrates with AMBER or Silver Alerts, alerting law enforcement in real time when a vehicle associated with an alert passes a camera — helping officers respond quickly in critical situations.

In Las Cruces, we have used this technology to help solve everything from homicides to missing-person cases. Our ability to locate and recover stolen vehicles has improved significantly since we implemented LPRs in 2021. Just recently, the first clue to an attempted kidnapping on NMSU’s campus came from an LPR. Because of this technology, the NMSU Police Department arrested the suspect the following day.

While LPRs do not provide continuous tracking or identify who is behind the wheel, they are one of the few tools available that can quickly surface actionable vehicle information in the moments it’s needed most.

This tool is just one piece of the puzzle, but it is a critical one. Guardrails are important, and they exist in both department policy and state law, but the value of LPRs far outweighs reasonable privacy concerns. LPRs allow law enforcement to obtain justice for victims and, in some cases, prevent them from becoming victims in the first place.