LPR Camera

The Kootenai County License Plate Recognition Project was spotlighted, outlining the success the program has experienced since its inception.

In the past decade, law enforcement has come to rely on technology to assist in the location of stolen vehicles and the apprehension of auto theft suspects. Police Departments are starting to recognize the true value of technology in helping them do their jobs.

One such emerging technology is called License Plate Recognition or LPR. This technology has been used successfully in the United Kingdom since 1992, when it was developed by Cambridge University. The technology came to the United States and was first tested in a law enforcement application in 2004. Although LPR is fairly new in the law enforcement field, the technology has been used in the United States in a variety of commercial applications for several years. For example: in restricted areas, corporate businesses have used LPR for vehicular access control. LPR technology reads the vehicle license plate of an employee arriving for work and verifies the plate against a database of employees. If approved, the system allows the vehicle entry into the employee parking lot.

Most recently, LPR has become a valuable tool for law enforcement in the struggle to reduce crime, apprehend suspects and recover stolen vehicles.  The implementation of the License Plate Recognition (LPR) system within the local law enforcement agencies technology tool bag has proved to be beneficial beyond our expectations.  Some in the industry refer to LPR as the best tool to come to law enforcement since DNA technology.

Car thieves are often engaged in a variety of criminal activities, including the trafficking of illegal narcotics, fraud, burglary and a wide variety of other crimes. As part of this project, investigators have been able to solve numerous crimes, unrelated to car theft. This project has assited staff in solving several cases using this technology that more than likely would not have been solved otherwise.