Having the proper tools to do the job makes all the difference. The same is true in police work. Recently, the Mission RCMP has acquired an ALPR (Automated Licence Plate Recognition) system for traffic services.
The purchase was funded from the existing policing budget and no additional funds were required from the District of Mission.
The ALPR system is a license plate recognition program that allows vehicles observed by cameras to have their license plate read and queried.
The cameras are mounted on a marked police vehicle and capture licence plates in any type of light or weather.
That information is then transferred to the mobile laptop in the police vehicle and the licence plate is automatically checked on the police database systems.
“Typically, a police officer on patrol could check anywhere between 40-70 licence plates in a 12 hour shift. With the new ALPR, they will be able to check thousands in a given shift,” explained Corp. Nathan Berze of the Mission RCMP.
“This exponentially increases our efficiency in identifying stolen vehicles, high risk drivers, prohibited drivers, persons with warrants for their arrest, missing persons and unlicensed drivers.”
He called it an “investment into our goal to make the streets of Mission safer.”
The ALPR goal is to reduce auto theft and motor vehicle violations in particular those related to prohibited, suspended, unlicensed and uninsured drivers.
The ALPR program assists in the recovery of stolen vehicles, property and related vehicle criminality.
The ALPR program is currently being used by other policing jurisdictions across Canada with excellent results and does comply with the Federal and Provincial privacy laws.