San Francisco Car Theft Falls Sharply as Flock Cameras Draw Credit and Scrutiny

San Francisco law enforcement leaders tell Planet Money that greater use of surveillance technology, including the Flock system, has been crucial to the drop in car crime. The article asks how much credit Flock actually deserves, noting that other enforcement and policy changes were also underway.

In July 2022, San Francisco District Attorney Jenkins began taking a more aggressive approach to prosecuting people accused of crimes. Meanwhile, the San Francisco Police Department beefed up its tactics to fight car thefts and break-ins. In 2023, for example, the police increased patrols in tourist areas known for car break-ins and used bait cars to catch and build cases against organized car burglars. Jenkins says one of the most important factors behind the drop in crime came when the city introduced new crime-fighting technology.

In March 2024, San Francisco voters approved Proposition E, which among other provisions made it easier for the police department to use drones and high-tech surveillance cameras. That same month, the SFPD began installing Flock cameras in strategic locations.

In a statement to Planet Money, a spokesperson for the SFPD said, "ALPR has been instrumental in driving down crime in San Francisco. These tools enable our officers to identify crime vehicles with precision, and ALPR is assisting in reducing crimes that were previously very challenging to solve, like auto burglaries."

Jenkins described how Flock cameras and drones can work together to catch suspected criminals. In one case the SFPD publicized, the department says Flock cameras spotted a moving vehicle linked to an auto burglary the previous day and alerted officers. Officers deployed a drone, which flew in from above and then began recording suspects in real time as they smashed windows and stole luggage out of a parked SUV. The police then moved in and arrested them. They can do all this, Jenkins says, "without putting innocent people in danger with dangerous police chases." The surveillance system also creates an evidence trail that Jenkins' office can use to prosecute suspected criminals. Jenkins believes high-tech surveillance helps deter crime, although that is harder to prove.

The most ambitious study of Flock's system so far is a recent one by University of South Carolina crime researchers Ian Adams and Scott Mourtgos. They analyzed data from 216 law enforcement agencies that introduced Flock cameras, comparing crime trends with places that had not adopted Flock. They found that deploying Flock cameras was associated with an 11 percent drop in car thefts in the first year. This is only one study, and it has yet to be peer-reviewed. It is also not a randomized controlled trial, the gold standard for finding the actual causal effect of something. Other factors beyond Flock could still help explain the decline. The study attempted to control for variables, the article points out, including how San Francisco's decline coincided with a broader drop in crime across American cities as the country emerged from the pandemic.

But the article also notes another worry shared by countless citizens and political leaders. It asks whether these systems are handing too much power to law enforcement to "invade our privacy, trace our whereabouts, and stomp on our civil liberties."