We Can (and Do) Solve Crime
TLDR
- Flock Safety’s LPR cameras and computer vision help solve 700,000 crimes per year across U.S. cities, including eliminating homicides in some jurisdictions.
Key Takeaways
- Garrett Langley and Matt Feury built the first Flock prototype in a weekend for under $1,000 using an Android phone, solar panel, and battery.
- Unlike traditional ALPR systems, Flock captures vehicles without plates or with fake tags by logging make, model, color, and physical features as a “vehicle signature.”
- Tulsa PD solved every homicide in 2024, Lakewood WA had zero homicides in 2025, and Las Vegas saw 20%+ year-over-year crime declines after adopting Flock.
- Flock also resolved over 1,000 missing persons cases and has expanded from cameras into drones and gunshot detection systems.
- Murder clearance rates fell from over 90% in 1961 to under 50% in 2021; Flock’s tech is positioned as a layer on top of DNA and fingerprinting to reverse that trend.
Why It Matters
- Police staffing has declined while crime complexity has grown; technology that multiplies investigator effectiveness is the most scalable lever available to departments.
- Objective vehicle-signature evidence reduces reliance on subjective human assessment, which the authors argue lowers wrongful-accusation risk while raising conviction accuracy.
- If deterrence follows certainty of capture, widespread LPR adoption could shift crime rates before crimes occur, not just improve solve rates after the fact.
David Ulevitch, Alex Immerman — Andreessen Horowitz · 2026-04-06 · Read the original
