The Suffern Police Department has introduced a new license plate reader designed to help officers identify perpetrators.

The device, which consists of two cameras mounted atop a police cruiser, scans the license plates of every passing car. The cameras are connected to a computer and whenever the reader detects a stolen vehicle or suspended registration, an alarm sounds and the device digitally captures the plate number.

A single license plate reader has the capacity to scan 50,000 plates in a period of two weeks.

"Since we've had this unit , we've already had over 40 arrests," says Chief Clarke Osborn, of the Suffern Police Department. "And most of them are for suspended licenses [and] suspended registrations."

A state grant covered the costs of the new license plate reader, which comes with a price tag of $20,000.