Flock cameras haven't improved Atlanta's crime clearance rates

jjimt1234 about 4 hours ago 41 commentsRead Article on atlpresscollective.com

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Discussion (41 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

ProllyInfamous•21 minutes ago

I spent half my day today in Atlanta's inner loop... soooo many Nissans just don't even have license plates, anymore (and other cars, too; but all other OEMs summed == Nissans).

It makes me want to purchase a beat-up silver Nissan (without plates also) and then I can blend in through obscurity?

----

My own ATL adventure today involved zero license plate scans, but obviously the machines are doing way more than just LPR (I have no illusions that my activities aren't still traced, even without a legible tag).

pton_xd•about 2 hours ago

Who thinks a surveillance state is about reducing crime? It's about control!

chipgap98•about 2 hours ago

And about earning a return for YC partners

fraserphysics•about 2 hours ago

Sort of related. Across the street from my cousin's house in Portland, OR, a car ran over the curb and into landscape features that knocked off the car's bumper and license plate. The perpetrator then backed up and drove away. My cousin's doorbell camera caught it all. Police are not interested, saying no one can prove who was driving. Who needs a license plate reader when you can get a license plate?

arjie•about 2 hours ago

That seems fine. Flock's partnership began in 2021.

2021 homicides: 161

2025 homicides: 96

The purpose of enforcement is to reduce the amount of crime not to maximize the percentage of prosecuted crime.

https://www.atlantaga.gov/Home/Components/News/News/13687/67...

https://www.11alive.com/article/news/crime/sharp-drop-in-atl...

cam_l•about 1 hour ago

Ooh, fact cherry picking..

From wiki.. "The number of murders in Atlanta was 80 in 2009, 92 in 2010, 88 in 2011, 85 in 2012, 82 in 2013, 93 in 2014, 95 in 2015, and 111 in 2016." [0]

In fact, 2016 is also a blip and then it goes back down again until 2019, and 2022 was the high point. It is almost as if the incidence of homicides is entirely unrelated to flock.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Atlanta

lacy_tinpot•about 2 hours ago

I think the case against Flock isn't about its efficacy, it's simply about civil rights.

Similar to how gun laws aren't about the safety of guns, I think Flock cameras, and other surveillance technologies simply encroach on individual freedoms.

A citizen should be reasonably free from government surveillance.

nomel•about 1 hour ago

Please note the article you're commenting under, where the case presented is entirely about efficacy.

nomel•about 2 hours ago

I would also assume surveillance would increase crime that's reported, at least a little bit, since it would mean the police would be less likely to say what anyone who has lived in a higher crime area is familiar with hearing: "There's nothing we can do about it".

chaps•about 2 hours ago

This reduction is happening across the board and isn't "because of flock".

stevenwoo•about 2 hours ago

I think that purpose statement implies good intentions - we all know measurement stats become the thing that is gamed to make one's organization look good and this is well documented for American law enforcement. Unless absolutely forced to, they simply do not measure things they do not want to report, i.e. prosecutors do not have to document racial backgrounds of accused to prevent racial discrimination from being proved in court (The New Jim Crow), crimes by law enforcement are underreported - especially fatal use of force - justified because "cop scared for his life" (Copoganda), tons of anecdotal evidence many cops will not investigate petty theft even when owners track down thief. The Wire kind of made fun of this "juking the stats" more than ten years ago (co-written by formal journalist David Simon).

ehhthing•about 2 hours ago

The reduction in crime cannot be attributed to using Flock cameras, so the figures you give aren't meaningful for this conversation.

Incipient•about 2 hours ago

Correlation does not mean causation!

...but it can. Unfortunately something like this with a huge number of independent variables, it's hard to know.

hilariously•about 2 hours ago

2021: I ate more hamburgers 2025: I ate less hamburgers

Prove to me it wasn't my hamburger eating.

rockskon•about 2 hours ago

Seems a bit premature to attribute that solely (or even primarily) to Flock.

It also begs the question of if there is a deterrent effect from cameras to commit homicide, couldn't that deterrent be achieved with a far less controversial technology?

protocolture•about 1 hour ago

If Cameras prevented crime, London would be some kind of Utopia.

llm_nerd•about 2 hours ago

2019 had 99 murders. This has absolutely nothing to do with Flock, and the notion is perverse nonsense.

Cameras do not prevent crime. This has been eminently shown endlessly. Now ideally they help then find the culprits, but in practice this just isn't happening.

nomel•about 1 hour ago

> Cameras do not prevent crime.

What is this based on? They do seem to prevent crime [1][2][3]. To my naive perspective, this seems ludicrously obvious, since there are just countless examples of thieves looking around for cameras, and then noping out once one is seen, that can be found on YouTube. As a youth, who enjoyed urban exploration with my friends (aka trespassing) it definitely deterred our group from entering a properties. It doesn't prevent certain crimes, but to say it doesn't prevent any is a perspective that I, and the insurance agencies that give discounts, just can't comprehend.

[1] https://www.ojp.gov/library/publications/cctv-surveillance-c...

[2] 13% drop https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/02/technology/personaltech/s...

[3] 25% drop https://popcenter.asu.edu/sites/g/files/litvpz3631/files/230...

smt88•about 2 hours ago

Homicide rates have dropped similarly (or more) in less-surveilled cities like Baltimore.

Crime is complex, and it’s incredibly silly to look at those two variables and call it a day.

cm2012•about 2 hours ago

Baltimore's crime drop is surveillance-related. They have over 800 city watch cameras across Baltimore. They even sent personalized custom messages to certain gang members who they've tracked doing crime adjacent things and tell them to stop or they will be arrested. If anything, Baltimore's recent crime drop is the tale of the success of surveillance policing mixed with good social service options.

chaps•about 2 hours ago

That's creepy as fuck.

Also, show proof.

muglug•about 2 hours ago

Eh 2020-2022 saw a nationwide increase in crime.

derektank•about 2 hours ago

The national homicide rate in 2025 fell below the levels seen in 2019, even exceeding the previous historical minimum set in 2014. There is clearly something new going on in the last 4 years besides simply reversing the rise seen during and immediately following Covid

chaps•about 1 hour ago

Quick: give us 10 correlative reasons why this could be that don't include surveillance tech.

You'll do great.

nothercastle•about 2 hours ago

Flock is about surveillance for profit sometimes that also has positive results but often the costs are too high

chaps•about 2 hours ago

People who like Flock: is this a surprise?

Mistletoe•about 2 hours ago

They’d be shocked if they could read.

protocolture•about 2 hours ago

Crime?

I thought these were deployed so that Cops could keep track of the women they want to beat.

King-Aaron•about 2 hours ago

They are for identifying dissidents to round up in the future, not for reducing the incidence rate of petty crime.

Governments and AI billionaires are all talking about some utopian future where we are all free to do what we want and have a universal basic income to support us. But the deployment of a draconian surveillance network, militarised police, domestic concentration camps and 'left wing terrorist' rhetoric is not painting a picture of a future utopia.

majorchord•about 2 hours ago

Please don't spread FUD.

4MOAisgoodenuf•about 2 hours ago

I’m not afraid to say that we can be quite certain that the Flock surveillance network will be detrimental to civil liberties. No doubt.

King-Aaron•about 2 hours ago

It literally already has been used to monitor activists.

I am so done sugar coating shit for these people who refuse to acknowledge the direction our civil liberties are heading.

hilariously•about 2 hours ago

Which part? Let's talk about it.

kayodelycaon•about 1 hour ago

It’s not FUD. Flock is permanently storing information when they say they’re not and the police are can look back at least six months. I imagine this is a premium feature.

A police department had to get more evidence because they got the wrong suspect in six months elapsed before the prosecutor got to see the case and tell them there was zero evidence.

After searching, back six months for the right color of car near the accident, in the flock database, they were able to locate another suspect.

Flock has location data for every car and have months of knowing when and where image recognition has seen a similar enough car. I hope they don’t get into tracking people. This is already horrifying.

King-Aaron•about 2 hours ago

Not a single thing I have said above is in any way, shape or form incorrect.

jojobas•about 2 hours ago

The "dissidents" are in plain view, you don't need flock to identify them. Track them down, catch some traffic violations to throw the book for - maybe.

delfinom•about 2 hours ago

Epstein class wants it.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/oracle-ceo-larry-ellison-says...