San Francisco's Car Crime Has Plunged. How Much Credit Does Flock Deserve? (npr.org)
- Reference: 0186010628
- News link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/10/03/0553234/san-franciscos-car-crime-has-plunged-how-much-credit-does-flock-deserve
- Source link: https://www.npr.org/sections/planet-money/2026/10/02/g-s1-146060/san-franciscos-car-crime-has-plunged-how-much-credit-does-flock-deserve
"San Francisco's law enforcement leaders tell us that greater use of surveillance technology — including a controversial, AI-powered license plate camera system made by Flock Safety — has been crucial to this drop in car crime."
> How much credit does Flock actually deserve...? [In July of 2022, San Francisco District Attorney] Jenkins began taking a more aggressive approach to prosecuting people accused of crimes. Meanwhile, the SFPD beefed up its tactics to fight car thefts and break-ins. In 2023, for example, the police [2]increased patrols in tourist areas known for car break-ins and used " [3]bait cars " to catch and build cases against organized car burglars. But, 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 [4]Proposition E , which, among other provisions, made it easier for SFPD to use drones and high-tech surveillance cameras. That [5]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 [6]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." Meanwhile, the surveillance system creates an evidence trail that [Jenkins'] office can use to prosecute suspected criminals... Jenkins also believes high-tech surveillance helps deter crime, although that's harder to prove...
>
> The most ambitious study of Flock's system so far is [7]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% drop in car thefts in the first year. This is only one study, and it has yet to be peer-reviewed. It's 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.
That study attempted to control for variables, the article points out — like how San Francisco's decline coincided with [8]a broader drop in crime across American cities as America emerged from the pandemic...
But the article also notes another worry shared by "countless citizens" and political leaders. Are these systems handing too much power to law enforcement to "invade our privacy, trace our whereabouts, and stomp on our civil liberties."
[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/planet-money/2026/10/02/g-s1-146060/san-franciscos-car-crime-has-plunged-how-much-credit-does-flock-deserve
[2] https://www.sanfranciscopolice.org/news/san-francisco-police-department-auto-break-enforcement
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqqIyKDHEZ0&t=67s
[4] https://ballotpedia.org/San_Francisco,_California,_Proposition_E,_Limit_Police_Department_Administrative_Task_Time_and_Increase_Use_of_Camera_and_Drone_Technology_Initiative_(March_2024)
[5] https://www.sanfranciscopolice.org/your-sfpd/policies/department-bulletins-notices/24-052
[6] https://www.x.com/SFPD/status/1829203230854918360?s=20
[7] https://www.crimrxiv.com/pub/zleg04q3/release/1
[8] https://counciloncj.org/crime-trends-in-u-s-cities-mid-year-2026-update/
None (Score:5, Informative)
People do not stop stealing cars because of cameras. But I guess Flock is desperate for some good press, so we get propaganda lies now.
Re: (Score:2)
This, 100%.
So, according to this, car thieves aren't stealing cars in areas that have Flocks. And, I bet the thieves are searching the area for Flocks. Great... what about the areas that don't have Flocks?
Hell, you could just throw a shirt or a flannel over the Flock and carry on.
But how do you know? - more data needed (Score:2)
> People do not stop stealing cars because of cameras. But I guess Flock is desperate for some good press, so we get propaganda lies now.
So #1, I don't know...you could be right, but I am neither confident you're wrong or right. #2, even if it's not a deterrent, arrests are. If they drive a stolen car by a flock camera and it helps police find them and take them off the street for a few years, in a way, it has stopped them from stealing...at least until they get out, at bare minimum.
The problem with flock for me is that I have no data to weigh the pros vs the cons. There's some problematic cops breaking the law with them. However, I
If you include Police misuse of Flock? (Score:2)
If you include MANY times police misused Flock cameras, does the overall crime rate go up, or down?
659,880 thefts to 69 documented Flock abuses (Score:2)
> If you include MANY times police misused Flock cameras, does the overall crime rate go up, or down?
Googling there were 659,880 vehicles stolen in the last year alone and a total of 69 recorded instances of Flock abuse. Now, that obviously doesn't tell us how many were thwarted nor how many police abused Flock and weren't caught...but this is why I want number and enough of this stupid Flock emotional melodrama. Sounds to me like the Flock downsides are a bit overblown...but...I also don't know how to quantify the upsides.
Re: (Score:2)
> So #1, I don't know...you could be right, but I am neither confident you're wrong or right. #2, even if it's not a deterrent, arrests are. If they drive a stolen car by a flock camera and it helps police find them and take them off the street for a few years, in a way, it has stopped them from stealing...at least until they get out, at bare minimum.
If they break into a car and the police look at the footage on the dashcam and see that they've kept their license plate out of view, but they are able to cross-correlate it with other cameras and figure out the plate number, then figure out where they drove that car, where it ended up parked, who got out, where they went, etc., then it can make arrests possible where it was not possible previously, making it *massively* more likely to be able to solve the crime.
The problem becomes when it turns into "show
There's different types of video (Score:3)
Teslas, BMW's, Rivian, and Mercedes have cameras all around the vehicle that are always on, and if a security incident is detected they will save the video from a few minutes before the incident to right after the incident.
A quick search shows that Tesla theft (by example) is 90% to 99% lower than the national average, and I assume the other types are similar.
> People do not stop stealing cars because of cameras. But I guess Flock is desperate for some good press, so we get propaganda lies now.
People do not steal cars because of *flock* cameras, they are always on, and the data is available to law enforcement with no oversight.
Personal vehic
Re: (Score:1)
I would think that Teslas get stolen far less often because they are difficult to sell and difficult to turn into parts and, on top of that, you have to do a lot of work to disable all the electronics in there. Hence not an effect that would transfer to any external cameras.
Also, who would want a bad-quality space-NAZI car anyways?
Re: (Score:2)
This is all about getting us to have warm fuzzy feelings for our Flock protectors. Probably so we are willing to report the vile criminals who vandalize them to steal the valuable metals and precious SSD, HDD and memory components inside.
Re: (Score:2)
I am 100% against flock cameras, but that doesn't mean your statement is true. While I agree that typically people will still steal even with flock cameras, if they catch people doing so and they go to jail they are not able to steal more. So while the a priori effect is negligible, that doesn't mean they can't reduce theft. The problem is that even if they do the loss of freedom from mass surveillance is not compensated for by the few cases where it makes things marginally better in a few select cases, es
Re: (Score:2)
The main problem is that the police does not really care about cars getting stolen.
Re: (Score:2)
"... ALPRs ... can be a good tool to solve crimes ..."
A gas chamber can be a good tool to prevent crimes.
"The bookkeeping is not there to ensure this technology is used responsibly ..."
No such thing as responsible violation of constitutional rights.
Drones (Score:2)
> 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."
That's a good idea, but it doesn't really need Flock.
gas chambers would work too (Score:4, Insightful)
Gas chambers would also lower car crime, doesn't mean it's ethical. A surveillance state certainly has *some* benefits, Hitler did some good things for the German people.
Perhaps of interest (Score:5, Interesting)
The [1]SF Democratic machine is all in on Flock [missionlocal.org]. That might have something to do with the Flock being in the SF Democratic Party.
> Mar raised another concern: Two of the committee's current members -- Lily Ho and Trevor Chandler -- work for Flock. Last month, the San Francisco Standard reported that a prior version of Mar's resolution was removed from the party's agenda by a subcommittee chaired by Ho. Neither Ho nor Chandler offered to abstain from voting on Wednesday. The committee does not have rules related to conflicts of interest for issues like this one, Tung told Mar. They then proceeded to count both Ho and Chandler's votes.
[1] https://missionlocal.org/2026/09/san-francisco-democratic-party-flock-cameras/
So that's the problem with the coalition party (Score:2)
You get a lot of people with a lot of different views some of which are just fucking stupid and they're only there because the other side wants to murder them.
The Republican party is basically composed of three groups. You've got the racists, you've got the religious lunatics and you have the ultra wealthy who want to screw us all over. That makes them a lot more cohesive and it's less obvious when there is corruption because being corrupt doesn't conflict with the goals of any of those three groups.
Re: (Score:2)
San Francisco has good mass transit, so ALPR's don't affect them as much (yet) as in car dependent cities where people don't have as much freedom in how they get around.
Someone should advise Ho and Chandler et al that Flock wants to use facial recognition to track people because that will include bicyclists and people taking mass transit!
ICE and National Guard (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe the threat of heavy handed law enforcement had an effect. Maybe not. There's also been a problem with precincts reclassifying crimes to make them seem better. We won't call it armed robbery, we'll call it a simple assault, stuff like that.
Re: (Score:2)
You think illegal immigrants are doing all the car thefts?
Re: ICE and National Guard (Score:2)
Certainly not. Do you think illegal immigrants steal no cars?
Re: (Score:3)
I was in the National Guard for 8 years. I never dealt with car thefts or property crime.
Classification (Score:2)
I know someone who was shot in the neck in a completely random attack at night, and survived. The cops wrote it up as aggravated assault instead of attempted homicide. That year the homicide, and attempted homicide, numbers in the city were down. Yay! They never caught the guy, though he shot two more random people in the same neighborhood that month.
Re: (Score:2)
If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
...
Definitely yes in this scenario... Maybe it should make more noise... Damn I am blaming the three here. OK, I will shut up.
Re: (Score:2)
> We won't call it armed robbery, we'll call it a simple assault, stuff like that.
On the surface of it stuff like that seems nefarious, but in reality very few of these conspiracies stand up to scrutiny. Mainly because the thing one is a statistics of is also included in other statistics so it's trivial to see the co-contribution of such a renaming in official figures, and yet it never actually appears.
It's like the people who complain that unemployment is being played with because they stopped counting people who gave up looking for work, except there has always been 6 different measure
How about Open Source and auditable? (Score:2)
I hate that we live in a world with cameras everywhere, but if police have good intentions they should have no problem handing the keys over to the courts.
I can envision a system where they ask a court to approve releasing footage from an area where a real crime occurred. The investigator identifies vehicles and people of interest, then an open source algorithm tracks where they came from and where they went, without exposing the rest of the population to a dragnet search. The results would be registered a
who watches the watcher? (Score:2)
that's a sensible approach except ... who trusts the judge? this would ofc prevent the average cop from stalking his ex or doing dirty side jobs or favors (described with "lol" or "sadfasf" in the "reason" field) but there is a non negligible group of people to which a judge would hardly say no, or even ask pertinent questions. you would be still in a surveillance state. the more meaningful question is do you want all people to be under permanent surveillance?
i would only answer yes if and only if there is
Re: (Score:2)
An issue with this is if say a drive-by shooting happens on Friday night and they have potential Flock footage to identify the vehicle and catch the shooters. Can they get legit judge approval in five minutes, or do they need to wait until Monday to get the judge's okay just to find it in a ditch after car thieves did their shooting and ditched it?
Many of the abuses are individual officers trying to find info on significant others or stalking. What about a system where an officer's request for Flock info re
71% incorrect (Score:2)
One city found that Flock was incorrect 71% of the times it identified felonies. But they did claim they installed the flock cameras using non-standard methods to avoid certain privacy concerns.
Flock likes to claim a 99+% accuracy under 'ideal' concerns.
San Francisco District Attorney Jenkins (Score:2)
is not a person that can be trusted. She has multiple counts of prosecutorial misconduct and the CA State Bar put her in a mandatory diversion program. She also nepotically hired/promoted Monifa Willis all the way to Chief of Staff of the San Francisco District Attorney's Office. Monifa Willis has absolutely no legal or law experience or education.
Flock cameras have nothing to do with the decrease while the increased patrols have everything to do with the reduction. Brooke Jenkins is a moron.
Practically, none... (Score:2, Interesting)
Flock and similar systems can only and track against persons following the law.
A car stolen by someone wearing a generic hoodie and glasses will not be identified by that Flock camera. Only the vehicle will be.
Once out of a Flock area, a simple plate swap (if the alternate plate is from a Flock-less area preferably from similar vehicle) and Flock is useless assuming that the car won't continue to be used with any visually unique identifying features such as damage, stickers, window tinting or paint.
The car
Why does it have to be Flock or nothing (Score:3)
Assuming Flock were the reason for the drop in crime (it isn't), then the job could still be performed by an ANPR / ALPR system run and operated by the state with a specific, well defined and legal purpose with oversight. It would certainly be better than allowing a private company to harvest that information and use it for god knows what nefarious purpose.
How about the false positives? (Score:2)
According to flock's own press releases their OCR accuracy is 96%. This means that the accuracy of reading a six character plate number is ~78%. This is likely reflecting the best case scenario and not real life where lighting, dirt, motion, weird angles, and obstacles are all degrading the accuracy.
So besides the couple of criminals that they caught, can we please hear about all the people who got stopped, potentially arrested and perhaps even had guns drawn on them? Also are they saying that they would h
Re: (Score:2)
> According to flock's own press releases their OCR accuracy is 96%. This means that the accuracy of reading a six character plate number is ~78%.
What makes you think the 96% number is per character as opposed to per plate?
Update: I read the article (Score:2)
Yes I know, this is Slashdot and you are supposed to comment without reading the article. Well I did read the article and wouldn't you know it:
> Jenkins began taking a more aggressive approach to prosecuting people accused of crimes. Meanwhile, the SFPD 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.
The Flock cameras were not the only variable that changed. By the looks of it it isn't even the most significant variable. Nothing in the articles speaks of what each of the variables contributed to the final 11% reduction. All of the evidence is quotes of people with vested interest saying "Trust me bro, it is the cameras". Well in that case all I can say is "Trust
The study is bullshit (Score:1)
In order to get the numbers that they want it they have to include break-ins not just thefts. Yeah 24/7 surveillance will make it easier to catch somebody who steals your car. We won't do it of course because why the fuck would we but it does make it easier.
But you can't get the numbers from the study with just stolen cars and if somebody breaks into your car no having all that surveillance isn't really going to help. It doesn't help that they know your license plate when your window gets broken in.
I quit stealing cars (Score:5, Funny)
Because I can't afford the parking in SF.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe it is due to people who have enough money to have cars worth stealing from .....have moved OUT of the hellhole that CA is rapidly becoming, especially SF.
Less targets means less of that type of crime.
Re: (Score:2)
I was going to go with the cost of gas, but it's the same joke...