The Wichita Police Department says license plate reader technology has been a big boost in solving crime across the city.
On Tuesday, the Wichita City Council approved a $275 thousand contract for more license plate readers, 110 in total, that will be installed across the city.
During the trial period of the system, they've helped recover more than $1.5 million in property, including 157 stolen vehicles. Not only can the system read the license tag, whether it's a permanent or temporary one, it can also identify a vehicle by build, make and color. WPD Lt. Casey Slaughter says the system has helped decrease the amount of time to recover stolen vehicles by an average of 4 days.
The readers have also helped to make 163 arrests, 110 of them were felony cases.
The readers don't record audio and the data is saved for up to 30 days. Any searches conducted with the system must be for a legitimate law enforcement purpose.