Data Fails to Support Flock Safety’s Claim of Solving One Million Crimes

Following scrutiny over privacy concerns surrounding its surveillance technology, Flock Safety and CEO Garrett Langley have promoted a statistic claiming the company helped clear just over one million crimes in the United States last year. However, a CBS News investigation reveals that this figure is not supported by available evidence and relies on a methodology that experts describe as unreliable.

Langley has repeatedly cited the one-million figure in various forums, including a March 2026 podcast interview and a recent blog post outlining new privacy updates. He stated, “Last year we helped clear just over a million crimes in America,” and told the automotive publication The Drive that the level of abuse associated with the technology was “incredibly low relative to that.quot;

In response to the investigation, Flock spokesman Paris Lewbel reframed the statistic, clarifying that it encompasses investigative leads, cross-jurisdictional assistance, and other deployments rather than solely case clearances. “The most precise way to describe our 2025 national estimate is that Flock technology supported approximately 1 million investigations and incidents,” Lewbel said. The company declined to answer whether Langley’s language was imprecise and did not provide underlying data to substantiate the claim.

The origins of the one-million figure were detailed in a May 2026 blog post announcing the results of Flock’s 2025 Impact Census, which included participation from roughly 700 law enforcement agencies. According to the company, some agencies provided raw counts while others offered percentage estimates. The census also found that 20% of cleared cases in customer jurisdictions in 2025 were assisted by Flock technology.

Crime data experts have expressed skepticism regarding these findings. Charles Fain Lehman, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a supporter of the technology, dismissed the specific statistic as worthless but noted that broader academic research suggests a smaller positive effect.

Footnotes on Flock’s blog post acknowledged that the figures were “directional estimates rather than audited totals” and that the methodology was “not a finished product.”

Andrew Wheeler, a criminologist and data scientist at Gainwell Technologies, criticized the study for failing to account for counterfactual scenarios—specifically, whether cases would have been solved without Flock’s involvement. “The ‘a million crimes solved’ is probably a gross over-estimate based on that particular work,” Wheeler said.

These statistical claims have influenced local government decisions. In Costa Mesa, California, the police department recommended renewing its $151,800 annual contract with Flock, citing the claim that the technology assisted in solving an estimated 20% of cleared cases. In July, the city council voted 6-1 to retain the cameras while renegotiating the contract terms.

This is not the first time Flock’s statistics have faced criticism. In 2024, the company claimed its technology was instrumental in solving 10% of reported crimes in the U.S., a figure promoted in a press release tied to a white paper authored by two Flock employees. However, the white paper itself concluded only that each additional camera per sworn officer was associated with a 9.1-percentage-point increase in clearance rates.

Wheeler previously called the 10% conclusion “ridiculous.” Johnny Nhan, one of the academic consultants on the paper, later told 404 Media that he personally would have drawn different conclusions and stated that the methods and data sources were not fully known to him. Flock had previously quoted Nhan as praising the company’s transparency, a claim Nhan effectively disputed by distancing himself from the paper’s effectiveness conclusions.

Langley admitted during an August CBS News interview that there was no peer-reviewed study supporting the national crime-solving claims. He instead pointed to July data showing 1,025 missing people detections and 22,000 stolen car detections as “indisputable” evidence, though Lewbel clarified these figures were based on unique vehicle detections linked to federal databases rather than direct sightings of persons or vehicles.

Additionally, CBS News identified internal inconsistencies in Flock’s published materials. A 2026 company fact sheet contained conflicting daily and weekly crime-solving figures, with one page citing over 2,000 crimes per day and another citing over 2,800 per week. The FAQ page similarly listed varying numbers. Following questions from CBS News, several of these documents were removed from the company’s public media kit, and the FAQ was updated to remove the claim of “1,000+ crimes solved per day.”