Patrolling high-crime areas in major cities is costly and dangerous. Therefore, it is easy to understand why the use of unmanned drones can help law enforcement fight crime. This method is a topic of discussion in law enforcement departments nationwide.
Police departments can now deploy drones to improve their ability to enforce the law and protect lives, to track down criminals on the run, and to better patrol high-crime areas. While law enforcement drones are still in the beginning stages of use, they are already proving to be increasingly important in police investigations. 
With the 2012 passing of the FAA Modernization and Reform Act, which contains a provision known as the Drone Act, law enforcement agencies are allowed “to buy and use unmanned aircraft for evidence gathering and surveillance.” The Department of Homeland Security has grant opportunities that allow for the purchase of drones and grants have already been given to purchase surveillance equipment for criminal justice agencies.
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Search and Rescue
Many law enforcement departments are being used for such things as search and rescue missions where a low flying aerial view is more powerful than using ‘boots on the ground’ or a helicopter, often with more success. In search and rescue especially, the time saved with a drone could mean life or death.
Crime and Traffic Accident Scene Analysis
A drone could reduce the time a forensic photographer spends capturing images to well under an hour. With the use of a few simple ground measurements, the drone can then fly over the scene to grab the images, giving the analyst the ability to conduct the investigation on a computer instead of on-scene.
Surveillance
Surveillance takes many man hours of sitting and waiting. Drones allow police to see places and things that fixed cameras cannot. Along with that, there are times when the surveillance isn’t done in an area that a typical stake-out works. Having high flying drone is an excellent choice.
Crowd Monitoring
Large crowds typically need a presence of law enforcement on the ground. Having the ability to monitor concerts, sporting events, parades, etc. from the sky will allow the response time to potential situations to become more efficient.
Bomb Inspection
Currently, bomb disposal enforcement teams typically send in ground-based robots to investigate suspicious packages. An aerial drone can serve the same purpose. While they cannot touch, or manipulate bombs, they are able to provide an initial assessment of the situation and rule certain threats. Using drones to do a survey first will get the data to the decision makers who are monitoring the situation.
High-Speed Chases
In any situation that law enforcement officials need to move at a high-speed through traffic there are always risks of accidents. Having a drone ahead of them, and passing back the information has the potential to cut down on the risk of accidents. Not only that, a drone can go and survey areas like tunnels, hover under bridges and other structures. They can even fly inside buildings giving the experts as much detail as possible
This list is certainly not exhaustive. There are potentially many more areas in which a drone can help in law enforcement.
Universe Kogaku designs and manufactures optical lenses for drones (UAV’s), security, high tech and electronic applications. We stock 1000’s of standard lens assemblies and can custom design a solution for scanners, CCTV, CCD/CMOS, medical imaging, surveillance systems, machine vision and night vision systems.
