It is possible, though. Those were the statistics that came back to the Lyndhurst Police Department after Chief James O’Connor drove through a small section of the township last week in a new patrol car outfitted with the latest tool in police technology, an automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) system. To some, it may be considered a new slice of "big brother", but to police, they say it’s a piece of the newest wave of crime fighting tools that can significantly help keep the peace and catch criminals.

"It has so many capabilities, it’s not just restricted to reading a license plate and hoping a hit comes back for it on some sort of violation," said O’Connor. "We can put in geographic locations as well for things like people under restraining orders. We put in their license and if it hits on a patrol where they shouldn’t be, we’ll know about it."

The system was developed by PIPS Technology, which started first marketing the ALPR system to West Coast police forces, mainly in California, but the New Jersey State Police piloted the technology in coordination with three towns statewide last year. O’Connor said the approximately $30,000 system outfitted in a new patrol car and BOSS (Back Office System Server) was purchased with forfeited funds. The system on the patrol car has two front facing cameras that scan both sides of the road while a side view camera is specialized for reading plates in parking lots. When the information is scanned, the plate number and photo of the vehicle pops up on the screen and if there’s a violation, a red notice appears. All the plates are then stored in the server at the office.

"It used to be that you would stop at any suspicious vehicle, type the plate number in and get confirmation from the station," said O’Connor. "Now, you have a stolen car that passes you that used to go undetected, we’ll get a hit on it as soon it passes."

The technology however, could give off the "big brother" mentality.

"It’s like anything else I guess. Cameras here and cameras there, but as long as you have nothing to hide...seems alright to me," said John Veledez of Passaic who pulled in to the 7-Eleven in Lyndhurst for lunch last week. "It’s a little creepy that stuff is out there like that, but technology’s always expanding."

O’Connor himself said the tool could easily be used to track the occurrences of convicted sex offenders who may be hanging out near parks or schools more often than law enforcement officials would consider safe. He admits it might be contradictory to what the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) may consider the "most constitutional move", but said it’s a fact a life in ensuring public safety.

"What we could do is load in all the sex offenders into a geographic location and say we keep riding around and see John Doe is at the water park everyday, we’ll stop by and want to know what he’s doing there," said O’Connor.

Currently, Lyndhurst has a residency restriction ordinance in place that banished registered sex offenders from living within 2,500 feet of a school, park, playground, day care center or board of education approved bus stop. The ordinance does not prohibit the offender from entering the 2,500-foot residency restriction barrier however, just as long as he or she doesn’t live within it.

The state’s branch of the ACLU says that it needs to research that type of use in regard to tracking convicted sex offenders before having a position on the matter. New Jersey ACLU Executive Director Deborah Jacobs said that although surveillance technology such as the ALPR could lead to the "big brother" effect or even abuse by the policing authorities using it, there are ways to make it practical, useful and accepted by society.

"All of these technological tools for policing are susceptible to abuse, just as guns, batons and badges are, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be used," said Jacobs. "The important thing is to have a meaningful community dialogue on their use, develop policies and practices that thwart the potential for abuse and implement systems to evaluate their effectiveness so that a cost-benefits analysis can be done."