Two dozen automated surveillance cameras designed to help law enforcement officials investigate crime should be installed in various Shasta County locations by mid-January. The automated license plate readers are expected to help the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office investigate cases involving everything from arson, adults reported missing under suspicious or unexplained circumstances and child abduction reports, as well as reports of stolen vehicles and general crime. Shasta County law enforcement is joining several thousand other communities in the U.S. that use Flock Safety’s license plate readers, which sit atop poles near neighborhoods, schools and shopping centers, snapping encrypted photos of passing vehicles. Similar systems are already in use in Anderson and Redding. Law enforcement agencies in Siskiyou, Trinity, Humbolt and Tehama Counties are close to adding them.