Cedar Rapids council approves license plate readers

CEDAR RAPIDS - Without council or public comment Tuesday, the City Council unanimously approved Police Chief Wayne Jerman's request to buy two automated license plate readers.

Before the meeting, Mayor Ron Corbett said Jerman had been asking for the technology for a couple of years, but the council deferred the purchase so it could spend money on other items.

'This year we are able to give it a try and see how efficient it makes the Police Department,” the mayor said.

Jerman has secured a $30,000 state grant to cover most of the $31,700 cost for the license plate readers. The rest of the money is coming from assets forfeited by criminals, he said.

The chief reiterated Tuesday that he will establish a policy on the use of the plate readers before they go into use in late summer or early fall. He is reviewing policies of other departments, the International Association of Police Chiefs and the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa.

Jerman said the readers will be attached to two squad cars where they automatically will feed plate numbers into law enforcement databases to instantly identify stolen cars and owners of vehicles who have warrants for arrest.

One sensitive issue that has come with plate readers in other jurisdictions is the length of time the data is kept.

Jerman, whose previous employer, the Montgomery County, Md., Police Department, used license plate readers, said keeping data for six months before deleting it is the practice in some jurisdictions. He said the ACLU calls for it to be deleted after seven days.

Keeping data for a time makes sense, he said, because it can allow police to review what vehicles were in an area during a period of neighborhood assaults or break-ins, for instance.

Sgt. Paul Parizek, public information officer at the Des Moines Police Department, said his department keeps stored data up to six months.

The Des Moines department has had 'great success” with its two plate readers, which it began using in late 2012.

In 2013, the readers scanned 441,487 license plates and got 2,883 'hits,” a 0.65-percent success rate. In 2014, 499,789 plates were read with 3,063 hits, a 0.61-percent rate; and so far in 2015, 142,877 plates have been read with 1,109 hits, a 0.77 percent rate, according to the Des Moines department's data.

Parizek said 'hits” include stolen vehicles, people wanted on criminal warrants and habitual violators with numerous outstanding city parking violations.