WALKER - At the three entrances of the Spring Lake subdivision, drivers may or may not know that new devices are keeping track of who comes and goes.

"They're motion-activated cameras," Spring Lake resident, Greg Bunch said. "They work day or night and basically anything moving through these entrances is picked up."

There is nothing standard about these license plate readers, from Flock Safety, that were installed last month. 

"There's been a lot of concerns about the crime instances that have occurred," Bunch said. "When we put these in, we got a big, big positive response from everyone." 

What makes them stand out from other neighborhood security measures is where the data goes once a license plate is scanned.

"That plate is decoded along with the make [and] model of the vehicle," Bunch said. "If that plate matches key factors that are in the National Crime Information Center computer, local law enforcement get immediately notified."

The NCIC is a law enforcement database within the FBI, used by agencies across the country. With these machines sending info directly to that database, the Livingston Parish Sheriff's Office, in this case, can get a jumpstart on solving crimes and catching criminals.

"If it's a stolen vehicle, abducted child, amber alert, stolen plate, [or] felony warrant, as soon as [the camera] picks up that vehicle, law enforcement knows about it."

While Spring Lake isn't prone to an overflow of crime, residents have seen thieves target cars and other personal items in the past. With enough money on hand, the subdivision's homeowner's association settled on these specialized plate readers to keep its subdivision and residents safe.

"There's a lot of development going on around us," Bunch said. "With development comes more people, and with more people generally comes more crime. So we want to be proactive in that sense."