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Racializing Surveillance: Flock Camera Deployment, Black Population Geography, and the Limits of the Homicide Rationale in Hampton Roads

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  • Baird, Andrew F.
  • Keener, Steven
  • Finn, John

Abstract

This study examines the racialized geography of automatic license plate reader (ALPR) surveillance in Hampton Roads, Virginia. We link court-unsealed Flock Safety camera locations to measures from the 2020–2024 American Community Survey and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2022–2024 National Vital Statistics System. Population-adjusted negative binomial models with locality-clustered standard errors and Webb wild-cluster bootstrap p-values test associations with racial composition, poverty, age structure, homicide and overdose mortality, and Black/White neighborhood boundaries. Camera counts are consistently higher in areas with larger Black populations and those bordering substantially Blacker communities, net of all covariates. Homicide mortality is not positively associated with cameras in the fully controlled model, whereas overdose mortality is. These findings challenge race-neutral claims that ALPR cameras merely follow serious violence and support theories of racializing surveillance by showing how data-driven public-safety infrastructure can reproduce racial inequalities in surveillance exposure.

Suggested Citation

  • Baird, Andrew F. & Keener, Steven & Finn, John, 2026. "Racializing Surveillance: Flock Camera Deployment, Black Population Geography, and the Limits of the Homicide Rationale in Hampton Roads," SocArXiv d6j3b_v2, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:d6j3b_v2
    DOI: 10.31235/osf.io/d6j3b_v2
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