Flock Technology is Helping Mt. Juliet Become a Safe City

Our Take

This one comes straight from Flock Safety's marketing team, not an independent journalist, so treat it accordingly. A single success story — a homicide vehicle flagged in 48 hours — gets stretched into a sweeping claim that an entire city is now "safe" thanks to license plate readers. That's the pitch Flock sells to every city council in America, and it works because nobody likes to be the department that said no to catching a killer faster.

But the burglary and auto theft percentages cited here are self-reported by the police department and the vendor selling the cameras — there's no third-party audit, no control group, and no accounting for other variables like staffing changes, weather, or shifting crime patterns nationally. Correlation isn't causation, and a company grading its own product's homework is not evidence. We've seen these stats get walked back or quietly revised in other cities once outside researchers actually look at the data.

What's missing from the video entirely is any mention of how long that plate data is stored, who else can query it, or what oversight exists to stop mission creep into immigration enforcement or tracking people who've committed no crime at all. If Mt. Juliet has a Flock system near you, check our camera map to see it, and visit our take-action page if you want to push your local council for real transparency instead of a highlight reel.