Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) are motion-activated cameras widely used by law enforcement nationwide to address crime (https://transparency.flocksafety.com/oak-park-il-pd)
In 2022, current trustees Susan Buchanan and Chibuike Enyia voted no to a request from the Oak Park Police Department (OPPD) for 20 ALPRs; fortunately, eight were approved despite their votes and remain in use.
Recently, the village board voted 6-1 to permit the owner of a parking lot to install ALPRs to control access to and use of its lot.
Interestingly, Buchanan and Enyia voted yes to ALPRs for mere parking, but no for addressing crime; the board’s highest priority is public safety.
The village board will soon decide whether to retain the existing 8 ALPRs, a technology the OPPD highly recommends as especially effective, a racially unbiased investigative tool with aspects of deterrence and an ability to address some crime in real time.
Critics of the cameras use specious reasoning to falsely assert that ALPRs “cause harm” to Black people and other minorities; they are working hard to have them eliminated. Our well respected, highly-educated and -trained Black female police chief is emphatic that these ALPRs cause no racially skewed results. One Black patrol officer told me, “We need these cameras,” noting that he wouldn’t support anything that was racially biased.
The Oak Park Police Department is about 30% understaffed. At the patrol level, full staffing is 70, with upcoming resignations and retirements, staffing will likely be under 40. Resident Beat Officer (RBO) positions are all vacant; personnel have been reassigned to shore-up patrols.
Why is staffing down? Reasons include: national anti-police mood in recent years, Oak Park activists persist in making false accusations against OPPD, the terrible workspace for OPPD in the basement of village hall, cops see our board discussing a major rehab of adequate village hall office space and no discussion addressing the terrible OPPD workspace. These affect recruitment, retention, and morale.
We have a shorthanded OPPD under diverse leadership asking to retain, possibly expand, use of a racially neutral technology with demonstrable investigative, deterrent and proactive value in enhancing public safety.
We have local activists who start with a conclusion about policing that is perhaps accurate elsewhere, but not in Oak Park, then work backward to cherry-pick some statistics, omit others, and conflate unrelated issues in asserting, falsely, that ALPRs are racially detrimental to minorities.
ALPRs are no more big brother than the cellphone in your pocket, tracking your every move, Ring doorbells, home and retail security cameras, iPass transponders, redlight cameras, speed cameras. They are not detrimental to minorities. They are detrimental to criminals. They are beneficial to Oak Park residents of all backgrounds.
Please email our trustees at board@oak-park.us that if ALPRs are good for parking lot control, they are even better for public safety, no matter what color any of us are.
Jack Powers is a longtime resident of Oak Park and a member of CPOC. These views are my own and not to be construed as being on behalf of CPOC or any other member.