There’s something about high technology mixing with law enforcement that invokes images of 1984, Big Brother, movies like Minority Report and, of course, RoboCop. But the reality is, tech is changing how all of us work, including law enforcement.
On Long Island the Long Beach Police Department is making a major tech push. The officers began patrolling the boardwalk on Segways, those self balancing two-wheelers we’ve gotten used to seeing mall cops ride. And today, the department said it will begin using a license plate scanner that can index a whole parking lot full of cars in about one minute.
The police then run the numbers to find if any cars are connected with crimes.
From the Associated Press story:
Long Beach is among a growing number of communities using the roof-mounted license plate reader, known as the Mobile Plate Hunter.
The device costs about $22,000. The North Carolina-based manufacturer Remington ELSAG, says more than 220 departments use it nationwide. The scanner sends out bleeps and alarms when the two infrared cameras scan license plates at a rate of between 15 to 25 per second.
Images of those plate numbers are sent to a database in the car trunk and compared to a digital list of vehicles wanted for various crimes, traffic violations, reported stolen cars and vehicles linked to Amber Alerts for kidnapped children.
