Cobb County Police Deputy Chief Stuart VanHoozer keeps his law enforcement agency at the forefront of emerging technology and new methods of crime fighting through innovative leadership. Pair that attitude with community policing, the practice of effective and efficient policing that keeps the needs of the community front and center, and it becomes clear why Cobb County PD’s strategy includes the highly-successful use of Flock Safety license plate readers. 

While Cobb County began using LPR technology in 2015, their most widespread deployment of fixed LPR systems began with a Flock Safety pilot in 2019. In just six months, the agency saw an astounding 60% reduction in crime in a specific beat of Precinct 2, attributed to implementing the LPR cameras. 

Two years later, Deputy Chief VanHoozer shares the four things he wants fellow law enforcement and the community to understand about license plate recognition.

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1. Law enforcement can use this technology while protecting citizen privacy

When they first began using the cameras, Cobb County Police met with a small group of community leaders, local politicians, and their own team to collect and assess privacy concerns. The agency put together a draft policy, which they published for the public to weigh in and comment on before finalizing their current policy.

The current privacy policy includes provisions such as an annual sample audit of the searches police are conducting. Deputy Chief VanHoozer explains that this “maintains the integrity of the program.”

2. LPR technology helps enable community policing

The Cobb County Police Department works very closely with their community to share what they’re using technology for and how it’s helping to keep residents safe. 

“LPR encourages us to partner with [the community] in a number of ways. That’s community policing — when your community listens to you, gets the technology that actually helps make people safe, and then we take that tool and use it to actually help prevent crime or capture an offender.”

3. LPR technology is highly effective

Flock Safety’s Hotlist feature allows Cobb County Police to receive immediate alerts when certain vehicles enter their jurisdiction: a stolen car, stolen tag, or a car registered to a wanted suspect, missing person, individual on a terrorist watch list, etc. Upon receiving that alert, patrol officers are notified in real-time.  

“I don’t even know if we can quantify at this point how many arrests we’ve made off of these license plate recognition systems,” says Deputy Chief VanHoozer. 

That number includes two murder suspects apprehended in the week prior to this video being shot. 

“Were it not for these alerts, in all likelihood we would not have known that these murder suspects were in Cobb County.”

4. LPR technology shows Officers’ dedication

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