Opinion: Flock cameras won’t make us safer. Here’s what will

I am white, and grew up in an all-white community. I know how people like me think about surveillance technology like Automated License Plate Readers. If you’re not doing anything wrong, you don’t have to worry about it.

What a privileged, and false, take.

A single query of the Flock system can access data from more than 83,000 cameras nationwide. If you own a car that has been driven, your plate has been read — probably many times. And with a one-in-10 error rate, it has probably been read incorrectly.

Police stopped and held Brittney Gilliam and her children at gunpoint after a Flock camera incorrectly matched her Colorado SUV to a stolen motorcycle with Montana plates. Police also held Denise Green at gunpoint after the system mistook “3” for “7.” These are not hypotheticals. They are terrifying encounters that are multiplying, as Flock expands.

The issue goes beyond errors. Police in Texas used ALPR data to track a woman who had an abortion, then tried to file criminal charges against her. Hundreds of searches have tracked No Kings and 50501 protesters. The DEA and ATF once planned to surveil gun show attendees. Dozens of officers have used Flock to stalk current and former partners.

Flock Safety, the company behind the cameras, obstructs any attempt to establish guardrails, accountability, or transparency. Amazon is no one’s model for corporate responsibility, and even it cut ties with Flock.

People who say “if you’re not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about” usually forget that we have all made mistakes. But we have not all been caught or punished equally.

What happens to me, a white woman and native English speaker, if a cop pulls me over and I don’t have my license? I get a warning, maybe a ticket. But if I’m Latina and speak English with an accent? In most of Ohio, that traffic stop ends with a call to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or the Border Patrol. 

I might not see my children again — not because I committed a crime, but because local police decided my accent was a reason to report me to immigration authorities. That is racial profiling, and the officers are the ones breaking the law.

The unequal treatment is not limited to immigration. Do you think no one used or sold drugs in my all-white hometown? We just didn’t have a cop on every corner. Our teen offenders got sent to treatment programs, not juvenile detention.

ALPR cameras gather evidence to use after a crime happens. They were never meant to prevent it. In fact, our law enforcement strategy is actually not about preventing crime. It is the use of force and repression to punish crime. That is an important distinction.

Our current approach simply creates more anger and pain, which creates more crime. Incarceration locks away the “problem” without understanding or addressing what caused it. Jail is not about rehabilitation. It is about coercive control, which undercuts the possibility of self-improvement. That’s why abusers use it to control their victims.

If we want to prevent crime, we need to reduce the reasons people are hurting and build trust. That requires changing the way some of our institutions work, and creating some new institutions. 

Right now, victims of sexual assault cannot trust the police, prosecutors, or courts. The system doesn’t make survivors feel safe, help them get safe, or work on changing the behaviors of the people that harm them, so they can stay safe and cycles end. 

Black people cannot trust the police; if they call for help, they are treated like suspects. Immigrants cannot trust the police, too often, contact ends with a transfer to ICE. People experiencing homelessness or mental health crises cannot trust the police. Officers are not trained to help them, and harm them instead.

Police cannot solve all of society’s problems, and they, alone, cannot prevent crime. Investing in public transportation, education, and healthcare; raising the minimum wage; creating alternative response teams for mental health, sexual assault, and other specialized needs; and building alternatives to incarceration — those are actual solutions that require investment.

Let’s put the money we save by cancelling Flock contracts toward these priorities.

Lynn Tramonte is Executive Director of the Ohio Immigrant Alliance.