40% of Flock stops in Oak Park were mistakes

Apr 24

Graph showing how many of the 25 Flock stop in Oak Park were mistakes. 10 of hte 25 flock stops were mistakes. All but one included Black drivers and passengers except for one, where the race of the driver was unknown.

Flock cameras disproportionately affect Oak Park’s Black community members

Oak Park’s eight Flock Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) cameras scan over 300,0000 vehicles every month. Most of these scans are stored in a database where they are accessible to Oak Park police and shared with police departments across the country. A tiny fraction of those scans trigger an alert because the license plate is on a law enforcement agency’s “hot list,” usually as a stolen vehicle. This post is the second in a series exploring the impact these cameras, and the traffic stops that they precipitate, have had on our community.

The Oak Park Police Department provides regular updates to the Citizen Police Oversight Committee (CPOC) on how the cameras have been used in the previous month. CPOC consolidated the data from these updates and released a report examining the first 10 months of Flock in Oak Park in October 2023. In analyzing this data, we learned that in in the first 10 months of use, Oak Park’s Flock cameras had…

3 million license plates scans. Of these approximately 3 million scans,
42 Flock Safety data alerts were triggered. Of these 42 Flock alerts,
25 alerts resulted in a Flock traffic stop. These 25 Flock stops involved
29 people (drivers and passengers) and an overwhelming majority of these people were Black. Of these stops,
40% were mistakes due to bad data or officer error.

40% of Oak Park’s Flock stops were mistakes

Our analysis found that 40% of Flock stops in Oak Park were mistakes due to data issues or officer error. In one Flock stop, the officer did not verify the license plate before the stop. The incident was referred to internal affairs. A Black person was included in all of these Flock-stops-as-a-result-of-mistakes except one, where the occupant’s race was unknown.

Mistakes and bad data are common with ALPRs

ALPRs are technical devices, and like all technology, ALPRs have been shown to make mistakes. ALPRs can generate false-positive alerts and this is a major problem with using ALPRs for criminal enforcement. Mistakes generated by ALPRs and carceral surveillance, result in drivers being harassed, incarcerated, and experiencing potentially life-threatening encounters with police.

Outdated data is the most common reason for mistakes in Oak Park’s Flock stops. Here is a common scenario describing how this happens.

A previously stolen (but since recovered) vehicle drives past one of Oak Park’s Flock cameras.
The camera scans the license plate and sees that it has been flagged as “stolen” in the Illinois Law Enforcement Agencies Data System (LEADS).
The Flock system sends an alert out to police. Per Oak Park’s ALPR General Order, “Officers shall verify all ALPR activations prior to taking enforcement action.” LEADS is listed as one of the systems officers can use to assist their verification.
Once the officer stops and talks to the driver, they often learn that the vehicle been recovered.
Too often though, the LEADS system had not been updated to reflect that fact.

So, not only did the driver have the trauma of their car being stolen. Now they are being stopped by police who think they are driving a stolen car.

Call to action

With its Flock contract nearing the end of its current term, Oak Park can choose differently. Join other community members in calling on the Village to cancel the Flock contract and invest these dollars into community-led supports for safety, like violence interruption programs, enacting a non-police mental health response team, or creating a free bike program for youth.

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