Denver Police has recently announced that they'll be using a mounted license plate scanner on the busy road in order to identify crime.

In late September, the city of Denver installed a permanent camera system at Federal Blvd. and 6th Ave., the first of its kind in the city. The new installation atop the traffic light looking over the intersection will be used to autonomously scan license plates, and it will send an alert to police when a vehicle of interest has been spotted.

"There's been a number of hit-and-runs in the area, a number of vehicles stolen in the area. So we thought that was a strategic location," said police spokesperson Ron Thomas in a statement. "We've had a good deal of success with the mobile license plate readers, the ones that are tied to vehicles. We've been able to identify and locate a number of stolen vehicles and vehicles wanted in connection with violent crimes, so it has been a successful program."

It will be used to alert the police about stolen vehicles, track vehicles involved in hit-and-runs, identify canceled or suspended licenses, and track missing children. Police officers who have received training in the system can view "live" data only, not past records. Its sole purpose is to identify crime, according to police officials.

The scanner program has been in place since 2015 -- in the first six weeks of the program, it generated more than 9,000 "hits" on suspicious vehicles which resulted in 71 arrests and 40 citations. Currently, Denver has 11 license plate scanners mounted in vehicles while Aurora has 22 stationary scanners.

Watch the video below to see how the in-vehicle license plate scanners work:

There are no other plans at this time to install additional license plate cameras throughout the city.

What do you think? Will we be seeing more license plate scanners popping up around Denver and other cities? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.

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