After spending years in law enforcement, I learned that crime statistics are never just numbers on a page. Every report represents a person whose sense of safety was disrupted, a family dealing with fear, a business owner facing loss, or a victim waiting for answers.
Across Maryland in 2025 alone, there were over 306,000 victims statewide. Those numbers included more than 21,000 motor vehicle thefts, nearly 9,000 robberies, and more than 100 human trafficking victims identified, according to the Maryland State Police.
Those numbers should encourage all of us to recognize a difficult reality: crime today is faster, more mobile, and more interconnected than ever before.
As a retired law enforcement officer for Baltimore County Police, what has remained consistent throughout my career is the understanding that law enforcement cannot address modern crime with outdated tools alone.
Criminals today move quickly between jurisdictions, often using stolen vehicles, coordinated networks, and technology to avoid detection. Human trafficking operations, vehicle theft rings, organized retail theft, and violent offenders rarely operate within neat geographic boundaries. By the time investigators connect the dots, suspects may already be counties or states away.
That is why modern investigative tools, including License Plate Reader (LPR) technology, have become increasingly important in supporting law enforcement efforts.
LPR systems help officers identify stolen vehicles, locate suspects connected to violent crimes, and develop critical investigative leads in time-sensitive situations. They can also assist in Amber Alerts, Silver Alerts, missing persons cases, and investigations involving trafficking or organized criminal activity where rapid identification and movement tracking can make a meaningful difference.
These systems are not a replacement for police officers, investigators, or community policing. Good policing still depends on training, judgment, relationships, and public trust. But technology can help officers work more effectively by providing information faster and helping agencies coordinate across jurisdictions in ways that were far more difficult just a decade ago.
From my experience in law enforcement, the first hours after a crime are often the most important. The faster investigators can identify a vehicle, establish a timeline, or connect separate incidents, the greater the chance of stopping additional crimes and protecting more victims.
The statistics coming out of Maryland are not abstract. They represent real victims, real families, and real communities looking for solutions. We owe it to them to use every responsible resource available to help keep our neighborhoods safer.
Editor’s note: Baltimore Fishbowl publishes occasional essays written by regional residents exploring local themes. Brian Wolf, a former Baltimore County police officer, is aligned with the Survivors for Safer Communities, a coalition dedicated to building safer neighborhoods by elevating real-world experience, exposing the true costs of crime, and advancing smart, responsible technological solutions.
Automated license plate readers in Maryland collect data at all times, 24/7, storing it for up to 30 days. This data has been used to, among other things: search for individuals (not vehicles) based on simple identifying characteristics, obtain warrants due to circumstantial evidence of travel across state lines, and stalk individuals. Police officers are often instructed to not mention ALPR usage when filing reports or complaints. Flock, the company, aggressively lobbies police departments and instructs them on how to promote their products to government leaders. There is no warrant required to access ALPR information. If an officer wanted to see exactly where I’ve been over the past 30 days and use that information to arrest me for a crime that I had nothing to do with, they would be able to do so, and this isn’t a hypothetical—it’s happened before. I vehemently disagree with the publishing of this opinion piece, as it reads like a thinly veiled advertisement for Flock (the most common ALPR vendor) while conveniently omitting the severe privacy violations and extremely shady business tactics of the company. A surveillance state isn’t something to aspire to, and there is no mention in this article of any cases that ALPRs actually solved—just hypotheticals. Retract this.
Oh, wow. A former cop advocating for government surveillance that cops themselves have been caught accessing to stalk women.
Not to mention the egregious invasion of privacy as they’re used to track down people crossing state lines for medical procedures.
Do better, Fishbowl.
With the a government that wants to spy on everyone to fulfill their agenda and the billionaires wanting to make fortunes off tracking people and everything they do no system of spying on what people do can be trusted today. We have no idea who is going to get access to this data. We have no idea how this data will be used in the future. Just like DOGE was given access to all kinds of our personal data that was supposed to be safe. Now the government is demanding access to our emergency room information and our voting records. All with the excuse of keeping people safe. REMOVE ALL FLOCK CAMERAS