Advances in technology continue to revolutionize policing in important ways. Three key advancements that are being used today are body-worn cameras, license plate readers, and gunshot detection syste

LPR may be used for a variety of purposes, ranging from relatively routine checks of stolen vehicles to more complex surveillance functions. The purpose of this paper is to develop a “continuum of LPR uses” that provides a framework for understanding the potential legal and legitimacy issues related to LPR. The paper then analyzes results from the first random-sample community survey on the topic.

Design/methodology/approach – Random-sample survey (n¼ 457).

Findings – The paper finds substantial support for many LPR uses, although the public also appears to know little about the technology. The survey also reveals that the public does not regard the uses of LPR as equivalent, but rather support is qualified depending upon the use at issue.

Originality/value – Previous research has not systematically categorized the wide variety of LPR uses, an oversight which has sometimes led to implicit consideration of these functions as if they are equivalent in their costs and benefits. To assist agencies concerned with community responses to LPR use, the paper points to a number of factors tending to decrease support for LPR, namely, the extent to which a use involves purposes unrelated to vehicle enforcement, the extent to which a function involves prolonged storage of individuals’ travel data, and the extent to which a use is perceived as impacting “average” members of the community.

Keywords Police, Community relations, Public perceptions Paper type Research paper Introduction License plate recognition (LPR) technology is rapidly diffusing in policing. In a national survey of police agencies conducted by the authors in September 2009, it was found that 37 percent of large police agencies already used LPR and that nearly one-third of the remaining large agencies planned to acquire it within one year (Lum et al., 2010). Additionally, the technical capacities required for storing individuals’ travel data collected by LPR readers, as well as the ability to link this data with other databases, are similarly expanding. Within this climate of rapid adoption, however, a good deal of speculation exists over the legal and legitimacy implications of LPR use.

For example, do certain uses of LPR without a warrant violate the guarantees of US Constitution? Additionally, will privacy concerns or the potential for the unauthorized disclosure of travel data lead to significant decreases in community legitimacy or job approval for law enforcement agencies that choose to adopt this technology? The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/1363-951X.htm Received 12 July 2012 Revised 24 September 2012 8 November 2012 Accepted 25 November 2012 Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management Vol. 37 No. 1, 2014 pp. 30-51 r Emerald Group Publishing Limited 1363-951X DOI 10.1108/PIJPSM-07-2012-0064 The National Institute of Justice and the Department of the Navy/SPAWAR provided support for this research. Additionally, the authors would like to thank the Fairfax County Police Department for their assistance with this research. 30 PIJPSM 37,1 Despite the pressing need for knowledge about LPR, very few researchers or agencies have examined these issues. For example, as of February 2012, only a handful of law review articles have even briefly discussed the potential legal issues surrounding LPR use (Hubbard, 2008; Rushin, 2011). Even where assessments have been attempted, many are informal in nature and do not rely upon rigorous social scientific techniques of evaluation. In this paper, we conduct the first community survey related to LPR use in order to investigate the public’s views of the technology.

Prior to discussion of the survey, however, the next section of this paper describes the technology in more detail, since all readers may not yet be familiar with LPR.

Following this, we situate the project within existing research and also provide a brief overview of the relevant legal issues. Additionally, we introduce and discuss a “continuum of LPR uses.” We include this continuum for two reasons. First, it serves as a useful organizing scheme for analyses of LPR. Further, we develop this continuum because the wide variety of LPR uses have not been systematically categorized nor distinguished within the literature to this point. Rather, existing analyses have too often treated the numerous LPR uses as equivalent in their implications or ignored emergent uses which are made possible by increases in the technological capacity of law enforcement. Understanding the characteristics of the range of LPR uses can help researchers to generate more accurate tests of the technology, as well as aid the research and practice communities in thinking about the legal and legitimacy concerns that may arise from varying uses.

LPR technology As an operational tool for law enforcement, the license plate reader is a straightforward and easily understood piece of sensory technology. LPRs scan the license plates of moving or parked vehicles while either mounted on a moving patrol car or attached to a fixed location, such as a toll plaza. Once a plate is scanned and its alphanumeric pattern is read by the LPR system, the technology compares the license plate against an existing database of plates that are of interest to law enforcement. Plates “of interest,” for example, might include those on vehicles which have been recently stolen, or whose registered owners have open warrants. When a match is made, a signal alerts the officer to proceed with further confirmation, investigation, and action.

Hundreds of cars may be scanned and checked in very short periods of time. LPR technology thereby automates a process that, in the past, was conducted manually, slowly, tag by tag, and with a much discretion. In this manual approach, officers would see a car that appeared suspicious and provide the dispatcher with the plate number, who would then check the plate against a database such as National Crime Information Center to see whether the vehicle was stolen. The dispatcher would radio back to the officer with the status of the vehicle. Over time, it became routine to use in-car computer units – rather than a dispatcher – for this purpose. However, whether carried out through a dispatcher or via a check of in-car computer units, LPRs replace an ad hoc, tag-by-tag approach with an automated and speedy system.

In addition to their quick scanning and matching capabilities, LPR is, in a broader sense, an information technology system. These systems can collect and store large amounts of data (most frequently, the time, date, and location of a vehicle’s observation and its plate number)[1] for future record management, analysis, and linking with other databases. For example, license plate numbers collected by a reader mounted on a toll plaza might be stored and then accessed in the future by police to confirm a suspect’s alibi or whereabouts at a particular date and time. Additionally, data might 31 Community support for LPR also be used for predictive purposes. For instance, LPR units could be used to scan and record vehicular activity in front of high-risk locations. Unusual patterns of traffic by one or multiple vehicles that emerge from analyzing collected data might alert agencies to a heightened risk or concern. In theory, with enough saved LPR data, longitudinal information related to places and the activities of individuals could be constructed over time.Because of the sheer volume of tags that LPR can scan in minutes and because of its information technology capabilities, LPR, in theory, can act as a force multiplier for law enforcement engaged in crime prevention and homeland security efforts. However, the effective use of LPR is primarily limited by three factors: the system’s ability to read license plates accurately, the quality and relevance of the other data that may be compared with scanned plates collected by LPR readers, and the way in which police departments deploy the machines. Thus, it follows that improvements and refinements in scanning, data access, and police deployment strategies could potentially improve LPR’s effectiveness in controlling and preventing crime. At the same time, as with many other police tactics, advances in each of these functions can challenge other equally important facets of policing. These include legal concerns about how long data can be stored, to what extent data might be mined or accessed appropriately, the balancing of community values of privacy with security, and the broader concern of continuing police legitimacy within communities.

The current state of LPR research and the legal context Although a wide variety of agencies currently use LPR technology, relatively few social scientific studies have focussed on evaluating – or even understanding – its use. The most common type of LPR research has focussed on the functioning of the technology itself – demonstrating its effectiveness in scanning license plates and thereby detecting stolen automobiles in various settings, such as highways, parking lots, or toll booths (e.g. see Home Office, 2007; PA Consulting Group, 2003, 2004)[2].

In addition to these studies, two outcome evaluations measuring LPR’s deterrence effect on automobile and other crimes have recently been conducted in the USA (Lum et al. , 2011; Taylor et al., 2010). Though a limited number of interventions have been tested to date, these studies found no significant evidence of either a general or an offense-specific deterrent effect for LPR. As the LPR continuum discussed below suggests, the various uses of LPR can also present a number of legal and legitimacy challenges to the police. To this point, though, no empirical research has been published on the topic of legitimacy or community concerns related to LPR use. Even with respect to analyses or discussions of the legal issues related to LPR, only a few publications exist (discussed in greater detail below) (IACP, 2009; Hubbard, 2008). To date, a small number of courts have adjudicated cases tangentially involving LPR use, but these opinions represent first attempts by courts to grapple with situations where police have utilized LPR ( Green v. San Francisco, 2011; Machado v. City of New Haven , 2006;New York v. Davila , 2010;US v. Lurry , 2010).

Though they exist, these opinions do not provide much guidance to agencies considering LPR adoption because only a very limited number of issues have been raised by the parties to these cases. Practically, this means that it will take some time for the law enforcement community to receive a more definitive answer to the legal questions surrounding LPR policy and use. However, some courts and scholars have examined related issues and technologies which can provide a foundation for our discussion. For example, with respect to the legal 32 PIJPSM 37,1 issues involved, US courts have repeatedly adjudicated challenges to manual license plate checks by individual police officers and consistently held these checks to be constitutionally permissible (US v. Ellison,2006;US v. Walraven ,1989;US v. Matthews , 1980). These decisions hold that individuals possess no “constitutionally protected reasonable expectation of privacy” in their license plates ( Katz v. US, 1967, p. 360), since driving is a public activity. While on the road, the license plate must legally remain in public view at all times, a factor which most courts have viewed as dispositive ( US v. Diaz-Castaneda , 2007, pp. 1150-1151; US v. Ellison, 2006, pp. 561-562; Olabisiomotosho v. Houston , 1999, p. 529;US v. Walraven, 1989, p. 974). At first glance, these arguments might also seem to resolve the constitutional issues related to privacy and the use of LPR. Yet, when the issues surrounding the use of automated LPR technology (as opposed to individual, manual license plate checks) are examined, the courts may raise additional concerns. Indeed, though one might argue that LPR technology simply automates a process that could be carried out legally by individual officers (IACP, 2009, p. 12; Hubbard, 2008, pp. 6-9), this assertion relies on the fact that there are no significant legal distinctions between individual officers checking license plates by hand and the use of LPR. Additionally, if translated into policy, this contention is also premised on the notion that the widespread use of LPR would not have disparate effects on police legitimacy, job approval, or community perceptions. On the contrary, a number of authors have argued that there are substantial differences between manual checks and the deployment of LPR, even with respect to the most common use of the technology, that of detecting stolen vehicles (Hubbard, 2008). For example, Hubbard (2008) argues that LPR use does not merely make an officer’s job more efficient and less costly, but that it also allows the police to acquire new abilities that no human officer could possess, such as “[reading] license plates at 60 mph and at night” (p. 34). Hubbard points to a number of Supreme Court cases in which the justices have expressed concerns about the use of increasingly invasive technologies by police ( Dow Chemical Co. v. US , 1986;Kyllo v. US , 2001). Courts may raise similar concerns in the context of future proceedings related to LPR. Moreover, while this “automation” argument might possibly resolve the constitutional issues involved with some uses of LPR, it does not fully address the act of linking LPR data to other databases or the preservation of individuals’ travel data for extended periods of time by police. This distinction provides a useful illustration of the importance of the continuum of LPR uses (presented below). A single check of a license plate and the widespread and varied uses of LPR may be viewed differently by the public and by future courts adjudicating LPR issues for the reasons discussed in the next paragraphs.

The continuum represents a clearer framework for agencies considering LPR adoption and also underscores the potential for disparate legal and legitimacy implications connected with different uses. For example, as we will see, additional uses of LPR involve connecting a license plate to an individual’s motor vehicle records or connecting the license plate number with tertiary data unrelated to motor vehicles through the use of state motor vehicle databases. These functions may be viewed as distinct from other LPR uses because they involve linking LPR data to specific individuals and their records. As others have acknowledged, this may greatly increase the chance of harm to individuals in the community and may raise serious legitimacy issues if LPR data is misused or accessed illegally (IACP, 2009, pp. 11-12). Courts and members of the community may be unwilling to allow the connection of LPR travel information with the information 33 Community support for LPR contained in some other databases without any suspicion of wrongdoing by the individual.Indeed, though not a US Supreme Court case, there is some support for this notion in the case law. In State v. Donis(1998, p. 40), the New Jersey Supreme Court held that it was not permissible for police officers to use the mobile data terminals (MDT) in their patrol cars to obtain the registered owner’s personal information contained in the New Jersey Department of Motor Vehicles database without “reason to suspect wrongdoing.” Like the MDT searches that concerned the New Jersey Supreme Court, the linking of LPR data to other types of data involves the examination of personal data by the police and might be restricted by future court decisions if some individualized suspicion of wrongdoing is absent. Further, another distinct issue is raised by the collection and prolonged storage by law enforcement of a large quantity of data about citizens (many of whom have committed no crime). It is this momentum toward large scale, routine data storage by police that makes LPR truly unique in comparison with previous police activities.

Significantly, as more data is amassed over time, data storage may also implicate the most significant risks to the community through unauthorized or improper disclosure (IACP, 2009, p. 17). And, the decision to save LPR data may involve some particularly nuanced privacy issues because data storage could eventually make it possible for police to recreate the daily activities of specific individuals through LPR data. These potential increases in the generalized surveillance capabilities of police would seem to implicate similar issues to those discussed very recently by the US Supreme Court. In US v. Jones (2012), the court unanimously determined that the Constitution prohibits the warrantless placement by police of a beeper on a private automobile in order to track a citizen’s movements over an extended period. Though this case related to tracking by beepers (and not tracking through the use of LPR data), five justices expressed specific concerns about recent advances in technology that may greatly increase the surveillance capabilities of the police ( US v. Jones, 2012, pp. 26-29, 47-51).

And, they specifically noted the seriousness of these concerns, even while recognizing the many previous court decisions holding that individuals do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy on the roads ( US v. Jones, 2012, pp. 20-21).

In future cases, if the Court wished to, it could affirm the use of LPR, by distinguishing its use from the warrantless use of beepers declared impermissible in Jones . To do this, the court would need to emphasize the fact that beeper tracking involves an actual trespass by police into an individual’s belongings (in order to place the tracker on the vehicle), while LPR does not. In fact, this point seemed important to the votes of four justices in US v. Jones. However, for five of the justices ( Justices Sotomayor, Alito, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Kagan), this did not seem to be a key distinction upon which the Jonesdecision turned. Rather, these justices expressed unease regarding potential violations of privacy and increased police surveillance capabilities, concerns that seem to translate into the LPR context. Indeed, these five justices could form a majority in future decisions related specifically to limits on the use of LPR or other potential tools of warrantless surveillance. On a conceptual level, it seems more difficult to argue that LPR uses which involve data storage do not reflect a departure from our current notions of privacy. Police clearly do not presently store large quantities of data about citizens’ daily activities for extended periods of time. Authors writing about the privacy issues inherent in LPR have forcefully argued that the saving of LPR data should be viewed as distinct because these functions involve more than investigations of those suspected of 34 PIJPSM 37,1 breaking the law (Hubbard, 2008). Rather, these uses “track innocent people in the event that they may commit, or be involved in, a crime in the future [y] ” (Hubbard, 2008, p. 28). As we will see below, LPR systems may indeed be used for proactive or predictive purposes. Moreover, by storing data about the movements of individual vehicles, LPR systems may allow police to discern much more than the criminal activities of individuals.

Stored travel data may convey a great deal of information about who an individual associates with, which doctors or religious services she visits, which protests she participates in, and even which political party she belongs to. Normally, these activities are “dispersed over space and time,” so police officers cannot see them all at once (Reiman, 1995, p. 29). However, the collection and storage of data may bring many of these bits of information together on one system or connected systems. This is a strong argument for considering the functions involving prolonged data storage to be – at the very least – conceptually distinct from those involving the immediate use and erasure of data. The IACP has cautioned that inaccurate data or even data taken out of context may yield an erroneous picture to law enforcement, an occurrence that may actually hinder investigations (IACP, 2009, pp. 12, 14; Solove et al., 2006, p. 522). Misleading data stored for an extended period may also be very difficult for individuals to refute, since people normally do not keep detailed records of their activities and may not remember their locations once time has passed. Finally, it is also possible that LPR could impact the exercise of other rights or lead to changes in individual behaviors as members of the community realize that their daily activities could be routinely recorded, preserved, or even used against them as evidence (IACP, 2009, p. 16). A goal of LPR is to discourage the commission of illegal acts, but widespread use of the technology may also lead individuals to suppress unpopular, unconventional, or embarrassing actions that are not illegal (Reiman, 1995, p. 35). For example, courts and community members may be concerned that it is difficult for individuals to exercise First Amendment rights, such as through participation in a rally or demonstration, without traveling to do so (IACP, 2009, p. 14).

In this way, the implications of LPR may stretch beyond law enforcement or even privacy concerns to potentially influence a wider variety of legal behavior by members of the public.

The continuum of LPR uses as a framework for analysis As indicated above, license plate readers have a range of functions; these include the scanning of passing cars to check if they are stolen, as well as the potential storage of data about vehicular movements to access locations of vehicles at a later date. Each potential type of LPR use may be associated with distinct benefits (such as deterrence and crime prevention) and distinct costs. Costs might include legal challenges or a reduction in the community’s view of police legitimacy. Since legal and legitimacy issues may be contingent upon the type of LPR use involved, potential benefits and costs need to be categorized by researchers and agencies in a way that can match uses with potential implications. This step is all the more crucial because agencies are currently acquiring LPR units quickly and at a substantial cost, and promulgating policy in a low-information environment. The development of a continuum of uses for LPR can provide a tangible framework for aiding agencies as they consider adopting and deploying LPR readers. Figure 1 presents one possible continuum of LPR use. Each category (or space on the continuum) represents a type of LPR use. As one moves farther to the right of the 35 Community support for LPR continuum, additional legal and legitimacy concerns seem likely to be raised by the uses of LPR located there. Moreover, the intensity of these concerns may increase exponentially as uses become more predictive in nature.

Specific points along the continuum (1) Primary use: auto theft and cars of interest. This use of LPR involves an immediate check of a motorist’s license plate in order to detect whether that vehicle or license plate has been stolen or whether the particular vehicle is the subject of a search related to an investigation. We characterize this scenario as an “immediate” use of LPR because existing data that already identifies stolen vehicles is accessed, and the data collected from the LPR reader need not be stored for any length of time in order to perform this function. Research suggests that this is the way in which license plate readers are most frequently used by law enforcement agencies (Lumet al., 2010). According to a survey of agencies conducted by the authors in 2009, 91.4 percent of agencies with LPR use the technology for this purpose (Lum et al., 2010). Since this use of LPR does not necessitate data storage, it also seems reasonable to hypothesize that this function might raise the fewest privacy concerns or challenges to police legitimacy. Even with respect to this use of LPR, however, there are some arguments for considering this location on the continuum as conceptually distinct from traditional manual checks of license plates. For example, the argument has been made that the deployment of this technology represents more than simple automation or mere efficiency gains because the technology allows law enforcement to accomplish acts outside of human capabilities (Hubbard, 2008; Reiman, 1995). For example, the use of LPR allows officers to check license plates when it might be too dark outside for the human eye to see or even on the freeway when passing cars are going too fast for the human eye to register a license plate number (Hubbard, 2008). For these reasons, even the most common uses of LPR may be viewed by some members of the community as a departure from manual checks of license plates and, as a result, even these uses may have implications for police legitimacy. (2) Connection of LPR data with a secondary data source . The complexity of LPR use increases as one moves to the right of the continuum. The next likely use of LPR Primary Use Tertiary Data Mining PredictiveAnalysis Magnitude of Concern/Challenges Complexity of LPR Use Connection with Secondary Data Source Data Collection and Storage for Proactive Use Figure 1.

Continuum of LPR uses 36 PIJPSM 37,1 involves the connection of scanned license plates to a secondary data source associated with those plates, usually the linking of LPR data with records from a state’s Department of Motor Vehicles. Therefore, at this step on the continuum, information from the LPR readers is connected for the first time to an actual individual (the registered owner of the vehicle) and then to that owner’s motor vehicle record.

Unpaid parking tickets, lack of insurance, and other traffic-related delinquencies might be accessed. As a practical matter, the use of LPR technology at this step on the continuum also begins to raise issues of personal security for individuals in the community, since LPR data has now been linked with a specific individual.

Prior to LPR systems, manual approaches also routinely required motor vehicle records to be accessed by police in the investigation of traffic and other offenses.

The advent of LPR alters this only in the fact that these records would be accessed in an automated fashion and, perhaps over time, on a much larger scale as LPR use becomes more widespread. In addition to those suspected of a violation or a crime, the LRP data from law-abiding individuals might also be checked against existing databases of the types mentioned in the last paragraph. Most importantly, since LPR data would be linked with information about specific individuals via the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles database, this step on the continuum heightens the need for stringent standards for data handling.

(3) Tertiary data mining . The third location on the continuum involves further data linking, this time connecting LPR data with tertiary databases not directly related to vehicle enforcement by using motor vehicle information to identify persons of interest.

Prior to LPR, an investigation may have involved the police running a tag for a vehicle’s registered owner and then checking for the existence of an open warrant for the owner’s arrest. LPR certainly accelerates and automates this function. However, LPR use is not limited to checks for open warrants. Rather, the functions of license plate readers that fall into this third category can vary widely. For example, data that might be cross-checked against LPR data includes the license plates of vehicles owned by registered sex offenders, by individuals delinquent in the payment of child support, by recently released violent offenders, or even by individuals arrested for selling drugs around schools or public parks. In addition to helping to investigate or locate these individuals generally, vehicles with LPR may be deployed to patrol around specific locations, such as schools and parks. All of these LPR uses are similar, however, in that they involve the connection of LPR data to other data sources, but for law enforcement purposes unrelated to motor vehicles or vehicular enforcement .

Novel legitimacy issues may arise precisely because the police have now used LPRs for functions other than law enforcement related to vehicles or traffic. Since LPR is not being employed as a technological tool for more efficient traffic or vehicular enforcement at this space on the continuum, members of the public could view these uses as promoting the acquisition of more generalized surveillance capabilities by the police. Thus, it seems a reasonable hypothesis that the use of LPRs for these functions may heighten the likelihood that LPR adoption will impact police legitimacy, community approval, or other facets of police-community relations. Moreover, even within this category, different uses may evoke varying responses.

For example, members of the community may view sex offenses as grave enough to warrant the use of LPR to prevent individuals who have committed these crimes from entering school zones. Yet, the community might not tolerate other uses where the perceived benefits are too few or the perceived intrusions into the personal lives of community members seem too great. Though some authors writing on this topic have 37 Community support for LPR suggested hypotheses about the likelihood that some uses might be accepted over others, these hypotheses have not yet been tested through survey or other research.

These differences are examined in greater detail in the community survey results, presented below.(4) Data collection and storage for proactive use . This step on the continuum involves the long-term preservation of data from LPR readers for future investigative purposes. For example, during an investigation, saved LPR data might demonstrate that a suspect’s vehicle traveled to a certain location. Alibis of suspects might also be corroborated or challenged from the information captured by LPR units placed at toll roads or near locations where an individual claimed to be. Yet, others have highlighted the potential negative consequences of this type of data retention, for example, that saved data may also prejudice the investigatory process against an individual. This is a concern because LPR information may be presumed to be correct even in instances when the data may be misleading. For instance, if an LPR unit records the presence of a vehicle at a particular location, this does not necessarily mean that the registered owner was driving the vehicle at the time. Additionally, after time has passed, it may be difficult for an individual to combat an assumption that the data presents an accurate picture of daily activities, since individuals do not normally keep detailed records of their day-to-day routines.

Additionally, data storage raises an even more serious potential for abuse through either hacking or misuse; as a result, rigorous testing of policy in this area of the continuum is critical. Members of the community may also hold very strong opinions regarding whether or not this information should be considered private and even if data of this type should be collected and maintained by the police. The survey discussed below provides systematic evidence regarding one community’s response to these questions.

(5) Predictive analysis . While stored LPR data might be relevant to ongoing investigations, searches for individuals, or the verification of alibis, LPR data may also be used for more predictive analysis, an extension of its proactive use. Predictive analysis involves the analysis of collected data to determine patterns of behavior and movements in order to anticipate and prevent future crime. One example might be the decision to place LPR units at locations around an arena prior to a major event.

Unusual vehicular activity or multiple hits of particular vehicles in front of a location may be found by analyzing the saved data. Proactive investigations based upon this analysis might then be generated. Similar to these uses discussed above, vehicles might also be scanned for connection to other databases in order to anticipate problems for prevention purposes. This type of analysis logically would seem to offer special challenges to the legitimacy and legality of police actions. On the one hand, large amounts of data combining information from many incidents and individuals could be examined for overall patterns of behavior. This type of procedure is commonly used in intelligence analysis, where meaningful patterns may be found within large amounts of seemingly routine data. However, any type of predictive analysis runs the risk of false “positives” raising suspicions about innocent individuals. Anticipating and reducing the negative impact of false positives is an important crime prevention goal of democratic police agencies. Since predictive analyses utilizing LPR data may be undertaken in many different contexts, the reaction of the community may be dependent upon the context of such use. It is useful to gauge how such deployment of LPR units might be received by the community, an investigation which is begun in the survey discussed below. 38 PIJPSM 37,1 Data and methods Survey instrument and sampling The use of LPR may have important implications for police legitimacy and community-police relations, two factors that may further affect an agency’s ability to prevent and deter crime (Tyler, 1990). To explore these implications, we conducted a community survey in Fairfax County, Virginia, one of two locations in which the authors also later carried out experimental evaluations of the deterrence effect of LPR technology (Lumet al., 2011). Fairfax County is one of the large Northern Virginia suburban counties outside of Washington, DC, where many individuals who work in the metropolitan DC area reside. According to the US Census, the County has a population of 969,600 persons; approximately 62.7 percent are Caucasian, 17.6 percent are Asian, 9.2 percent are African American and 15.6 percent are Hispanic [3]. Fairfax County spans almost 400 square miles, with a population density of about 2,450 persons per square mile. The police department consists of approximately 1,370 sworn officers serving a relatively well-educated community (over 50 percent of residents have a college education) with a high home ownership rate (70 percent).

To carry out this survey experiment, we randomly sampled 2,000 Fairfax households, from all residential units/households in Fairfax County [4]. To select only residential properties, we first used a zoning polygon file in ARCGIS, which represented all of the different land use zoning districts within Fairfax County (3,962 zones of a possible 7,496 zones). Then, using a building point file, we selected only the addresses that fell within areas that were zoned as residential. The result was 237,444 residential addresses from which we could randomly draw our sample of 2,000 possible respondents. Once the initial 2,000 residences were selected, each was checked individually against the County’s public real estate records to ensure that the residence was occupied, that we had the proper mailing address, and that there were no duplicate addresses. If the online database indicated that an address did not exist or referenced a non-residence (such as a church, school, etc.), the address was removed from the data set and replaced with another randomly sampled residence. In total, we replaced 106 cases. The survey was then mailed to respondents along with a consent document and an introductory letter. The survey instrument contained a mix of demographic questions, general questions about crime and police legitimacy, and questions targeted to specific points on the continuum of LPR uses presented in Figure 1. Participants were also asked separate questions about their support for the variety of LPR uses discussed above. Finally, respondents were asked whether or not LPR data should be considered private information.

Response rate We sent out the first round of the survey to a sample of 2,000 households in May 2010.

Respondents were given the choice to complete the survey in hard copy and return it by business-return envelope or to complete the survey online. Though the envelope containing the survey was addressed to the “current resident,” the consent document explicitly stated that the respondent had to be 18 years or older in order to complete the survey. Approximately every two weeks following the first mailing, we sent further reminders about the survey to those addresses from which we had not yet received a response. We did this until we ended data collection in mid-July 2010. The survey materials noted that the survey was being administered jointly by the George Mason University and by the Fairfax Police Department. 39 Community support for LPR At the conclusion of data collection, 457 Fairfax residents had completed the survey, yielding a response rate of 22.9 percent, a relatively high response rate for a mailed survey. In terms of gender, the response pool included 48.9 percent female and 51.1 percent male respondents. With respect to race, the respondents indicated that they were 85.8 percent Caucasian, 3.7 percent African-American, 3.4 percent Latino, and 7.1 percent Asian/Pacific Islander. The divisions reported with respect to political party identification were 33 percent Democrat, 30 percent Republican, and 37 percent Independent. We used GIS software to link Census block-group information to addresses in our sample, and then compared respondents and non-respondents on their block-group estimate means. We compared block-group levels of poverty, unemployment, median family income, home ownership, linguistic isolation, and racial neighborhood composition. t-Tests of means did not indicate that those who responded to the survey were significantly different (with regard to social, economic, and demographic factors) than those who did not respond. However, despite this, there are some limitations to the postal survey methodology which should be acknowledged. As with all postal surveys, though the households receiving the surveys were randomly selected, it is not strictly possible to ensure the randomization of individuals within each household (since the survey was addressed to the “current resident,” rather than to specific individuals). It is possible that individuals with a greater tendency to be community-minded or even pro-police opted to answer the survey at higher rates than did other individuals in the community.

If so, this might produce a response pool containing answers more supportive of police or more accepting of new or innovative police technologies. Additionally, along similar lines, it should be noted that relatively small numbers of African-Americans and Latinos elected to respond to our survey. It is possible that a lowered response rate among members of these communities might also translate into a sample more predisposed to support the police.

Results Familiarity with LPR technology The survey suggests that many members of the community (62.8 percent) have heard of LPR, but that residents currently do not know much about the technology. In fact, almost 90 percent of respondents were willing to admit that they did not know whether or not their local police used LPR. When asked a factual question such as this, there is sometimes a tendency on the part of survey respondents to be unwilling to admit a lack of knowledge. However, in this case, the fact that nearly 90 percent of respondents selected “I don’t know” rather than attempting to answer (or “guess”) may underscore the degree to which residents are not yet familiar with LPR. These respondents seem to have felt little social stigma attached to a lack of knowledge about LPR. These results are consistent with the fact that public discourse on this issue has been extremely limited to this point. Moreover, as we shall see, this impression is confirmed by examining the results of this survey as a whole, as there are a number of questions where significant percentages of respondents expressed no opinion regarding various LPR issues.

Primary and other “immediate ”uses of LPR Figure 2 demonstrates that respondents were generally supportive of both the primary use of LPR (detecting stolen autos) and of what we have termed the other “immediate” uses of LPR (those at continuum points (2) and (3), not requiring prolonged data 40 PIJPSM 37,1 storage). Specifically, when referencing the retrieval of stolen vehicles, 79.9 percent of respondents indicated that they would “strongly support” or “support” a decision by their local police to use LPR in this manner. This figure represents a very high level of support; in fact, only 10.7 percent of respondents indicated that they would oppose or strongly oppose a decision by the police to use LPR to detect stolen vehicles. In total, 9.4 percent of individuals indicated that they were neutral with respect to this question, leaving only a very small population of potentially undecided individuals (Figure 2).Many of the remaining “immediate” uses of LPR described in Figure 2 are also supported by the majority of the community. For each of these survey items, respondents were asked to assess the decision to use LPR when the technology is employed to detect crime at the moment that the data is collected. For example, 76.6 percent of respondents either “strongly supported” or “supported” the use of LPR to check passing vehicles to see if registered owners are wanted for crimes. Similar to the primary use of LPR, then, community support for checking outstanding warrants was quite high. This is in marked contrast to the community response to a survey item that asked about checking all passing vehicles for unpaid tickets and parking violations. Though directly related to traffic regulation and conceptually close to the primary use of LPR, this item represents the only immediate use of LPR that was supported by less than a majority of respondents (48.1 percent). Potential explanations for this result are discussed in detail below. 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% Check all passing vehicles for stolen status (n =448) Check all passing vehicles for parking violations and unpaid tickets (n =449) Check if vehicle owners are wanted for a crime (n =449) Check if vehicle owners are sex offenders (n =447) Strongly Oppose Oppose Neutral Support Strongly Support Investigate all vehicles to prevent terrorism (n =451) Figure 2.

Community responses to primary and immediate uses of LPR 41 Community support for LPR As expected, community support for the tertiary uses of LPR was also generally high (space 3 on the continuum), though not as high as for the primary use.

Specifically, 66.7 percent of respondents either “strongly supported” or “supported” using LPRs to check if registered owners of passing vehicles are sex offenders.

Similarly, 70.1 percent of respondents either “strongly supported” or “supported” utilizing LPR to investigate all vehicles passing or parking near important places or buildings for the purposes of terrorism prevention. Interestingly, despite the fact that suspected terrorists and child molesters are among some of the most despised categories of individuals, support for these uses was somewhat lower than support for the use of LPR to retrieve stolen vehicles. As discussed above, this may result from the fact that these uses are not directly related to vehicle enforcement. It seems logical that members of community – while still very supportive of these uses – might view these LPR functions as more intrusive and farther removed from the primary use of LPR.

Community reactions to the storage of LPR data Figures 3 and 4 present the results of the survey relating to LPR data storage. To begin, we asked respondents to specify whether they considered the four elements of LPR data (date of vehicle observation, time of observation, license plate number, and the location of the observation) to be public or private information. Surprisingly, despite the fact that those in the sample were generally quite supportive of LPR use, the majority of respondents (53.4 percent) considered LPR data to be private information. In designing the survey, we purposely placed this question prior to any other survey items regarding specific uses of saved data. This was done in order to guard against any potential bias that could be introduced through concern or reflection over specific uses of saved data. In addition to the majority that responded that LPR data should be considered private, 17.3 percent of the respondents expressed neutrality with respect to this question. Like some of the other survey items, this reflects a fairly large percentage of undecided individuals. Once the public becomes more familiar with 40.00% 35.00% 30.00% 25.00% 20.00% 15.00% 10.00% 5.00% 0.00% Strongly Private (5) Private (4) Neutral (3) Not Private (2) Strongly Not Private (1) Note: (n=451) Figure 3.

Do you believe that information from LPR readers should be considered private?

42 PIJPSM 37,1 LPR and experiences its use within the community firsthand, the opinions of these individuals may be altered.In comparison, the results are about evenly split when respondents are asked how long LPR data should be saved. As a response to this question, participants were permitted to select one of four options: that the data should be not be saved; that it should be saved for about one week; that it should be saved for about six months; or that it should be saved for as long as the police wish to save it. In the end, 30 percent of respondents opted for the six-month retention period, while approximately 23 percent of respondents opted for each of the remaining categories. This result could reflect a small preference for a data storage period of approximately six months, but the fact that the responses are so evenly split across all options more likely reflects a lack of developed opinion on this issue.

Moreover, when we examine the findings of the survey targeted to the later steps on the continuum, we find varied results (Figure 4). The use of saved LPR data to learn about the past activities of vehicles suspected of a crime yielded the highest levels of support (87.6 percent). Additionally, the use of saved data to investigate the activities of suspected terrorists was also associated with very high levels of support (79.0 percent). Support then declined slightly when respondents were asked about the use of saved data to examine the activities of individuals suspected of a crime (71.1 percent) and the past activities of sex offenders (66.7 percent). In contrast, proposals to utilize the same data to investigate “all vehicles which drive around an important place or 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% […] to find the last location of a vehicle connected with a crime? (n=444) […] to investigate all vehicles which drive around an important place or building? (n =437) […] to learn about the past activities of a suspect who is under investigation for a crime? (n =443) […] to learn about the past activities of a person suspected ofterrorism? (n=442) […] to learn about the past activities of sex offenders? (n =447) Strongly Oppose Oppose Neutral Support Strongly Support […] to learn about the activities of parents who don’t pay child support in order to force these parentsto appear in court? (n =439) Figure 4.

“The police should be able to use saved LPR data [ y]” 43 Community support for LPR building” prompted only 53.1 percent of respondents to mark “strongly support” or “support.” And, an item asking about the use of LPR to learn about the activities of parents who do not pay child support garnered the least support of the “saved” data uses (51 percent).

Discussion The survey conducted here provides the first evidence regarding public support for the adoption of LPR technology by law enforcement agencies. Although our survey results suggest relatively robust support for many uses of LPR, this finding must be moderated by the fact that, to date, only one community survey has been conducted on this topic. Despite this, the results presented above are helpful to researchers and law enforcement agencies interested in LPR for a number of reasons. First, at present, so little evidence exists as to community views of the technology that even one systematic study in an American community represents a significant advance in the evidence base. The systematic investigation of community opinion related to emerging technologies, like LPR, is important because alterations in the conduct of police functions can influence agency legitimacy and community approval, which in turn can also impact willingness to abide police and to obey the law (Tyler, 1990).Second, given the specific characteristics of the community selected, these findings may translate to similar suburban communities, particularly where support for the police is relatively robust. Of course, these results may differ in communities where lowered levels of police legitimacy are found. As a first study of LPR, however, this research provides a foundation for testing of further hypotheses about public opinion.

Lastly, in addition to the survey findings, a main contribution of this paper was to delineate a conceptual framework for future testing and analysis. To fill this gap, the continuum of uses was detailed above and then explored using survey results from one community. Indeed, when the survey results are viewed through the organizing scheme of the continuum of LPR uses, it becomes apparent that the public does not regard the various LPR uses to be equivalent, but rather makes significant distinctions when considering the ways in which LPR may be used. Indeed, support for LPR uses varied from 48.1 to 87.6 percent, depending upon which function was contemplated by respondents. As such, the survey results suggest that distinctions between LPR uses are not merely conceptual in nature, but seem to be associated with significant variations in the level of support reported by members of the community. To explore the hypothesis that members of the community view different uses of LPR as distinct in their implications, we targeted individual survey items to specific locations on the continuum presented above. Future studies would also benefit from considering the different uses of LPR as distinct, both in their potential benefits and also in their potential implications in the eyes of the community and of the courts. One of the notable characteristics considered by the authors to distinguish conceptually the various points on the continuum was the extent to which a particular LPR use relates to vehicle enforcement. For the most part, expectations that this factor would impact support for specific LPR functions are reflected in the survey results.

Community support for LPR uses closely related to vehicular enforcement appears to be high. This includes both the primary use of LPR (retrieval of stolen vehicles) (79.9 percent support) and the secondary uses specifically related to vehicles (step 2 on the continuum), such as utilizing LPR to check outstanding warrants (76.6 percent support). The fact that support for these immediate, vehicle-related uses is so high is 44 PIJPSM 37,1 consistent with their location at the start of the continuum. Members of the community seem to feel comfortable with the implications of these uses and seem confident in their judgments about the potential tradeoffs involved with these functions.In fact, a survey finding suggesting that nearly 80 percent of the public supports any policy or government initiative is actually quite striking. One explanation may be the perception that automated license plate checks (without data storage) are similar to the manual license plate checks already conducted by police. Thus, this finding also appears consistent with previous judgments of US courts, emphasizing that individuals do not generally find license plate checks to be too intrusive ( US v.

Diaz-Castaneda , 2007, p. 1151;US v. Walraven , 1989, p. 974). Of course, in communities with lower levels of police legitimacy, support for even these uses of LPR technology may correspondingly be reduced. Future research should aim to discern the exact magnitude of this impact on the categories of LPR use found in the continuum.

In this case, however, as the “immediate” uses of LPR raised by the survey became less closely tied to the regulation of vehicles, the results suggest that community support for these uses began to erode, at least slightly. The results with respect to investigating vehicles to prevent terrorism (70.1 percent support) and using LPR to check if vehicle owners are sex offenders (66.7 percent support) provided examples of this. To be precise, though a substantial majority of the community still supported each of these uses, some additional members of the public appear to have questioned the tradeoff between enhanced enforcement and the expanded reach of LPR when connected with tertiary data sources.

This result is particularly interesting, given the fact that the two items included on the survey – utilizing LPR to aid in the prevention of terrorism and of sexual offenses – are generally considered to be exceedingly important law enforcement purposes. In fact, no doubt many would argue that these purposes are actually more critical than those related to vehicular enforcement, detailed at continuum steps 1 and 2. Yet, respondents supported the connection of LPR data with tertiary data bases – even for these very serious purposes – in lower numbers than they supported using LPR for vehicle-related enforcement. Moreover, the lowest support for any LPR use mentioned in the survey is found when a police decision to use LPR to check passing vehicles for unpaid tickets and parking violations is mentioned. Interestingly, though this function is related directly to vehicle enforcement, this use was not supported by even a majority of respondents (48.1 percent support). The finding that support for this use is significantly lower among members of the community raises a crucial point for agencies considering the adoption of LPR. The most likely explanation for this lack of support is that respondents were easily able to recognize and to weigh a tangible (and even personal) cost that might result from more efficient police enforcement of parking ordinances (that they might be forced to pay fines more frequently). Simultaneously, individuals may also have had a difficult time associating the payment of parking tickets with tangible benefits to themselves or to the community. And, for those individuals sophisticated enough to weigh privacy concerns against potential law enforcement benefits, the enforcement of parking tickets may not have been viewed as an important enough community concern to merit grappling with the potential privacy implications of widespread or expanded LPR use. These issues merit careful consideration by agencies in formulating LPR policy.

Individuals in the community may be much less supportive of LPR uses that seem likely to affect them personally or to affect other “innocent” members of the community (such as when LPR is used to give parking tickets). The community can understand the tradeoffs of these uses with relative ease because they are close to an average citizen’s 45 Community support for LPR experiences and individuals can likely envision the possibility of experiencing negative consequences personally. It is not surprising, then, that community support for such uses would drop precipitously in comparison to other LPR functions. Such a result may also raise the possibility that individuals could be receptive to some of the arguments of privacy advocates and others, suggesting that LPR can be problematic because it targets “innocent” citizens in addition to those guilty of criminal behavior (Hubbard, 2008). The survey findings suggest that support for uses perceived as targeting “innocent” citizens seem, indeed, much less likely to be popular.A related caution is raised by examining the survey item suggesting that the majority of respondents deemed LPR data to be private information. This sentiment could provide a platform for alterations in public support for LPR use, particularly should events cause individuals to begin to assess the tradeoffs in terms benefits or costs of LPR differently. As events intervene, if they tip the scale in a manner which suggests that the crime control benefits are not as robust as previously imagined or the costs to individuals in the community greater, a basic belief that this information ought to be considered private may serve as the foundation for changes in opinion.

Even if significant changes in opinion do not occur, an erosion of police legitimacy may result from the perception that police are becoming too involved in collecting or storing private information. An experimental test of the legitimacy implications of LPR represents a future direction for research planned by the authors. Legally speaking, the question of whether or not LPR data is to be considered public or private information is also important because several of the court cases referenced earlier in this paper have held that individuals do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their license plates while driving ( US v. Diaz-Castaneda, 2007;US v. Ellison , 2006; US v. Walraven , 1989;US v. Matthews , 1980). As we have seen, however, the resolution of this issue may involve broader qu estions than the constitutional protection afforded during a single license plate check . While the courts may not view individual license plate checks as a violation of privac y, it is possible that LPR data may be viewed as distinct because an individual’s daily activities, preferences, or opinions might eventually be capable of being recreated or ascertained through saved LPR data. Similar concerns were echoed by a majority of justices in the Supreme Court’s most recent pronouncement on the issue of vehicle tracking by police utilizing an electronic beeper ( US v. Jones , 2012).

Indeed, the survey provides some further indications that the issue of data storage also represents an important factor in how these respondents reacted to the survey.

Overall, much like the uses of LPR located on the left side of the continuum, those in the sample generally expressed support for the uses of saved LPR data located on the right side of the continuum. Yet, in a number of instances, perceptible erosion in support can also be detected when compared with the corresponding “immediate” uses of LPR.

For example, 76.6 percent of respondents supported using LPR data to check outstanding warrants immediately following the collection of the data, while 71 percent of respondents supported using stored data to do so. Admittedly, this does not represent a large alteration in support; over two-thirds of respondents still supported the saved data use. However, at this point in the life cycle of LPR technology, agencies and researchers should be attentive to even slight alterations in support, as the public has encountered almost no negative or critical information about LPR to this point.

Since LPR is an emerging technology, public opinion related to the topic is likely to be in its infancy. Further, as this survey represents the first study of its kind, one goal of this research was to begin the process of establishing a cross-sectional measurement 46 PIJPSM 37,1 of “baseline” support for LPR. For this reason, no information regarding privacy concerns was provided to respondents. While support for LPR appears to be robust, a cautious approach merits leaving open the possibility that support could change significantly if instances of hacking, misuse or harm to community members resulted from LPR uses involving saved data.Additionally, it is important to note that only a bare majority of respondents (53.1 percent) supported the use of saved LPR data to investigate vehicles passing or parking in front of important places. In this age of concern about terrorism, it is surprising that this use did not produce a greater consensus. This finding is even more striking when it is considered that the sample was drawn from residents of Fairfax, Virginia, a community in close proximity to the nation’s capital, an area with a tangible connection to terrorism and many famous landmarks. A similarly lowered level of support was found when respondents were asked about the use of saved LPR data to investigate individuals delinquent on child support payments (only 48.4 percent support). In both of these cases, it seems theoretically plausible that concerns about data storage moderated otherwise high levels of support for the perceived efficiency increases associated with LPR. Once again, we also find evidence that support was qualified by the perceived likelihood that a particular use (this time, of saved LPR data) might impact “average” or “innocent” members of the community (as opposed to those engaged in criminal behavior). The uses of saved LPR data discussed in the last paragraph represent functions that would impact “average” members of the community because those survey items mentioned using LPR to investigate “all vehicles” or “parents” delinquent on child support payments. Inherent in these questions, then, were references to either “average” members of the community or to “all” members of the community, and support declined. In contrast, support remained high when survey items specifically referenced “sex offenders,” or “individuals suspected of a crime.” This is likely because members of the public have a difficult time associating potential alterations to the privacy rights of “average” members of the community with survey questions related to intensified investigations of individuals engaged in such criminal activity. In fact, outside of the LPR context, researchers investigating the underpinnings of public support for rights, such as individual privacy, have found similar results.

Specifically, a frequent finding of this research has been that members of the community – who are generally supportive of individual rights in the abstract – tend to default more frequently to a pro-security (or pro-crime prevention) stance when asked about specific public policies that might limit the rights of members of disliked groups (Marcus et al., 1995; McClosky, 1964; McClosky and Brill, 1983; McClosky and Zaller, 1984; Prothro and Grigg, 1963; Stouffer, 1955). Sex offenders and other criminals certainly qualify as members of disliked groups. Members of the public often have a difficult time connecting and weighing potential limitations to the rights of small, disliked groups (such as “sex offenders”) with possible erosions of broad rights guarantees (such as privacy) that may ultimately impact “average” citizens. In short, it is difficult for most members of the community to perceive that these changes might impact them personally in the future when they do not envision concrete impacts immediately.

And, the survey results provide one further example that is worth discussing.

The community exhibited particularly high levels of support for the use of saved LPR data when used specifically to find the last location of “a vehicle involved in a crime.” Though it involves saved data, this function of LPR was actually associated with the 47 Community support for LPR highest levels of support within this community of any function listed on the survey.

A number of factors might account for this result. First, this LPR function relates directly to vehicles, a factor which appears to be associated with increased support for the use of LPR. Perhaps equally important, though, the survey question does not actually refer to any specific individual or owner (but rather only to finding the location of “a vehicle”). This phrasing may have led many respondents to assume that only vehicles (and not persons) were being investigated as a consequence of this function.

As a result, it would not be surprising if individuals neglected to consider the privacy implications related to saved data in responding to this particular survey item. Like the uses discussed in the last paragraph, it would be difficult for respondents to envision negative impacts to “average” members of the community stemming from this LPR function. Future discussions of privacy concerns in the media or well-publicized instances of unauthorized data access might make it easier for the public to connect the range of LPR uses to potentially negative, real-world implications for “average” members of the community.We began this paper by underscoring the fact that law enforcement agencies are acquiring LPR readers at a rapid pace and with significant cost, but in a low-information environment. This study represents the first to systematically examine community opinions about LPR and is one of only a small number of studies related to emerging data storage technologies more generally. Though preliminary, this study is useful in that it highlights the importance of considering community sentiment and also points to a number of specific factors which should be considered by agencies in configuring LPR readers, as well as by researchers in generating future hypotheses to test. LPR readers have been shown to function well technologically, but we know relatively little about either the potential crime control benefits or the possible legitimacy costs of their deployment. For evaluation to progress, however, the discussion must move beyond the consideration of all uses of LPR as if they are equivalent. It is our hope that the continuum of uses detailed above may be a useful tool for understanding the varied costs and benefits along the range of LPR uses.

Notes 1. Some of the sources that we discovered have considered LPR systems that also record digital images of distinguishing vehicle features (such as damage to the vehicle or bumper stickers) or a digital image of the vehicle’s driver and passengers (International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), 2009). These possibilities may raise additional legal or constitutional implications not discussed here.

2. The authors conducted a full discussion of the research related to LPR functioning in a companion article to this piece (Lum et al., 2011).

3. These percentages sum to 4100 percent due to multiple-race reporting.

4. In order to estimate our sample size, we set as our goal a confidence interval (or margin of error) of between 4 and 5 percent. For the size of Fairfax County, this would require a final sample of between 384 and 600 respondents. Based upon the resources available for the project and an estimated response rate of between 20 and 30 percent, we chose to sample 2,000 residents of the County in order to acquire a sample of the appropriate size.

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Appendix. Survey question wording If your local police agency decided to use LPR to check all passing vehi\ cles to see if any have been stolen, would you support this decision? CIRCLE ONE:

An officer should be able use LPR technology in order to: Strongly Support Support Neutral Oppose Strongly Oppose … check all passing vehicles for parking violations and unpaid tickets.

… check if the registered owners of all passing vehicles are wanted for a crime. … check if the registered owners of all passing vehicles are sex offenders.

… investigate all vehicles passing or parking near important places or buildings to try to prevent terrorism. Strongly supportSupport Neutral Oppose Strongly Oppose … learn about the past activities of sex offenders? Strongly Support Support Neutral Oppose\ Strongly Oppose License Plate Recognition (LPR) technology may be used in many other w\ ays. Please tell us which other uses of LPR you would support by marking one box on each line below:

LPR systems take a photograph of a vehicle’s license plate number, wh\ ich can then be linked to the vehicle’s registered owner. The system can also be set up to record \ the date, time and exact location of a vehicle at the moment the photograph is taken. Do you believe that\ this information should be considered private? Please circle one number along this range. Private Information (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) Not Private Information If the police decide to save the LPR data (license plate number, date/time, location of the vehicle), the police will be able to look at the saved data in the future. Please \ tell us which uses of saved LPR data y ou would support by marking one box on each line below.

The police should be able to use saved LPR data in order to:

… find the last location of a vehicle connected with a crime?

… investigate all vehicles which drive around an important place or building?

… learn about the past activities of a suspect who is under investigation for a crime?

… learn about the past activities of a person suspected of terrorism?

… learn about the activities of parents who don’t pay child support in order to force these parents to appear in court? 50 PIJPSM 37,1 About the authors Dr Linda M. Merola is an Associate Professor of Criminology, Law and Society and the Co-Director of the Criminal Justice Policy Research Program in the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy, George Mason University. Dr Linda M. Merola is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: [email protected] Cynthia Lum is an Associate Professor of Criminology, Law and Society and the Deputy Director of the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy, George Mason University. Breanne Cave is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Criminology, Law and Society at the George Mason University.

Dr Julie Hibdon is an Assistant Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL.

To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: [email protected] Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints 51 Community support for LPR