Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced earlier this week he's investing hundreds of thousands of dollars to ramp up security in Ramapo, including license-plate readers.

News 12 sat down with an expert to find out how the readers will work.

Matthew Hill, of Rekor Systems, installs the technology all over the world. He says license-plate readers work 24/7. If they scan a license plate that matches a wanted vehicle, police are immediately alerted.

"It's a specialized camera that watches a road and every time a vehicle passes, it grabs the license plate number and compares that against an alert list,” he says.
Hill says they can be installed nearly anywhere, including light poles, traffic lights or pre-installed cameras.

"Every single day I hear one of our customers tell me about a carjacking, that they catch somebody or a stolen vehicle that they recover,” he says.

Grafton Thomas, who allegedly carried out the Monsey Hanukkah attack, was caught on a license-plate reader in New York City.

"In the past, they'd have to wait for a criminal to commit a second crime and a third crime and a fourth crime before they established a pattern,” says Hill.

He says license-plate readers have been around for about 20 years but because of improved accuracy and a high success rate helping catch criminals, there's been a rise in license-plate reader requests in the last few years.