A series of automatic license plate readers are currently being installed and brought online near major thoroughfares in what the city describes as an additional deterrent to criminal activity and an investigative tool when crimes are committed.
The units, which have already been installed at East Main Street and Giant City Road, the intersection of West Main with Sycamore Street and Emerald Avenue and others, are solar powered and will eventually be installed "at every major entrance to Carbondale," City Manager Gary Williams said.
The purchase and installation of the readers was approved by Carbondale City Council last summer. According to documents presented to the city council, the readers will expand the police department's investigative capabilities by providing more tools to detect vehicles that have been associated with crimes.
Here's how they work: Carbondale Police Chief Stan Reno said the readers capture license plate information and almost instantly compares license plate information with a database maintained by the Illinois State Police of vehicles that have been associated with criminal activity as well as vehicles which have been reported stolen or those with owners who have outstanding warrants. Within a few seconds, the police department is notified of any match.
Additionally, the city can add information to the database, which is shared with other communities. Williams said this type of information sharing helped police in California nab a suspect in a Carbondale homicide several years ago.
According to information provided to the city council, a University of Cincinnati study showed that 70% of crimes involve the use of a vehicle.
"Carbondale is a very transient community and there have been a number of times where serious incidents that have occurred here from people outside of the area," Williams said. "If someone was coming here who had been involved in a crime and their vehicle is in the database, we will know and hopefully, preempt any crimes from happening here."
The cameras also capture an image of the plate and portion of the vehicle to aid in the identification of the car or truck. Reno said the data captured by the readers is maintained for 90 days. He said the public should have no invasion of privacy concerns.
"If you're driving down the road and it captures license plate, it just makes sure that you're not on that list of vehicles that are of interest in any type of criminal case," he outlined. "If not, that information is automatically purged and never looked at. Plus you have to remember that the volume of information that's going to come through is tremendous."
As other Illinois communities have considered the readers, the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois has called them a violation of civil liberties.
ACLU spokesman Ed Yohnka said communities should be slow to implement the readers.
"Automatic License Plate Readers create a net of surveillance around communities where they are deployed. Any such deployment decision should move forward after a community enacts specific regulations and policies that prevent the system from being accessed for uses outside its stated purpose," he said. "Courts have long recognized that knowing where someone is and where someone travels reveals a lot about that individual. Government should not collect and catalogue that information without a stated, legitimate purpose."
Carbondale is the first community in the region to install the readers, although Southern Illinois University Carbondale has recently implanted the use of them on campus. Reno said other cities in the area are considering them. Belleville, Champaign, O'Fallon have been using the readers for some time.
"This is not necessarily new technology," Reno explained. "A lot of communities across the country have been using this for a while. It's really about using all of this technology to put together the most comprehensive and exhaustive investigation that we can on any type of case. These are tools and pieces of evidence that really is expected by juries in court to prove cases beyond a reasonable doubt."
© 2023 The Southern Illinoisan, Ill. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
