City of Durango

The first time a license-plate reader helped solve a violent felony, the lead came in minutes, not weeks. The community celebrated justice, but also voiced unease about who might be watching, who could gain access, and whether tools built for public safety could drift beyond their purpose. At community meetings, fears surfaced that ICE had access to ALPR data, which wasn’t true, but the concern itself was real. Today, debates about technology often hinge less on what it does than on what people fear it might become.

Since the adoption of body-worn cameras, law enforcement has undergone one of its most significant technological shifts. For generations, policing has adopted tools; body-worn cameras were the first to change behavior and increase accountability on both sides. Yet recently, the tools have advanced more quickly than contextualizing them. Political narratives, frequently driven by emotion and misunderstanding, now shape technology policies faster than evidence ever did.

As technology and community concerns evolved, so did my vision as a Chief, which was shaped by experience. I quickly reawakened to a fundamental truth: policing isn’t about mechanisms; it’s about preventing harm. Technology changes the how, not the why. I returned to what had worked for more than 25 years in investigating crime: proactive, results-based policing based on actionable intelligence and decisive enforcement, not passive analytics. Outcomes, not data for its own sake, mattered most.

Deterrence Through Certainty, Not Severity

One of the best compliments I received as a police chief sounded like a criticism when a councilor said from the dais that she never heard much about the police department. To me, that silence meant success. The most important outcomes in policing are never measured because they never happen; crimes prevented, victims never created. When policing works, there’s no headline, no statistic, and no incident to explain, just a community that remains safe.

Measurement is essential, but the realization of prevention changed how we measure success. Crime rates show what has already happened; clearance rates tell offenders what will happen. The difference isn’t academic; it’s behavioral. As the National Institute of Justice notes, “The certainty of being caught is a far more powerful deterrent than the severity of punishment.” Deterrence works when consequences feel inevitable, not abstract.

The New York Times reached a similar conclusion when examining policing metrics, noting that “criminals tend to think in the short term, responding more to the likelihood of getting caught than to long-range punishment” (The New York Times, analysis of policing metrics). Focusing exclusively on crime totals is a trap. Offenders don’t study dashboards; they calculate immediate risk. And good investigators leverage technology to increase quick solvability. Used correctly, technology multiplies effectiveness and builds legitimacy.

As a police chief, I’ve learned that occupying space in public safety carries unavoidable obligations to prevent crime, not merely respond to it.

Tools like license-plate readers, speed cameras, and limited drone use favor precision over intrusion. They don’t broaden policing; they narrow it, reducing guesswork, shortening investigations, and lowering repeat offenses. For short-term thinkers, speed is decisive; catching someone early, when the offense is small, often matters more than apprehending them dramatically after the crime has grown.

Public fear often imagines policing technology as a dragnet; precision policing works more like breadcrumbs. A camera hit isn’t probable cause; it’s an investigative lead. Human judgment, supervision, audit trails, and judicial oversight remain central; data is retained briefly, accessed narrowly, and governed by policy. The goal is restrained, targeted access: technology narrows scrutiny instead of broadening it. This is why governance matters more than ideology. Intentional contracts, training, cybersecurity, communication, and access controls determine whether technology earns trust or erodes it. When social trust fractures, fear fills the gap, and technology debates follow.

Proactive Policing Beyond Political Theater

When national frustration rises, efforts at change tend to focus where action is easiest, not where authority actually lies, leaving local law enforcement to absorb the gesture and communities to absorb the rising crime. After high-profile incidents, a single viral moment can rewrite policy overnight, often far from where reform would have real impact. The New York Times reported that several cities experienced sharp increases in violent crime following rapid pullbacks in proactive policing after 2020, even as reform goals remained unmet (New York Times, post-2020 crime analysis). Symbolic resistance can feel righteous, but policy reactions outpace practical outcomes and carry real costs.

Privacy is a fundamental human right, alongside the right to move freely and feel safe. Protecting privacy requires deliberate limits, not just good intentions. Ethical technology use is intentional, not accidental, built through transparent policies, public dashboards, and ongoing community dialogue. Contracts must clearly define data ownership and limit secondary sharing. Less intrusion, more precision.

Violence is a human problem, not a political one, but it is often exploited at political extremes, amplifying division instead of understanding. In that noise, policing technology becomes a stand-in for national debates, distracting from the shared goal of safety. What endures, even amid division, is the harder work of building trust through communication, transparency, and facts.

As a police chief, I’ve learned that occupying space in public safety carries unavoidable obligations to prevent crime, not merely respond to it. We cannot trade humanity for convenience or legitimacy for comfort. Deterrence works when policing is proactive, and enforcement is fair, swift, proportional, and when the message is clear: if you commit a crime, you will be caught. Communities are safest when technology serves people, not politics. When technology serves people, not politics, communities are safer, and trust has room to grow.