YAKIMA, Wash. -- This anti-theft technology won't win any beauty pageants, but it's helping reunite stolen vehicles with owners.

Four cameras mounted on the trunk of a Yakima police car scan passing license plates as a computer races through a national database of stolen cars, looking for a match.

"It's ugly, but it works," Chief Sam Granato said about the camera system, which has drawn regular questions and odd looks since the specially equipped car started rolling around town nearly a month ago.

The technology is part of an effort to address Yakima County's problem with auto theft.

Since 2005, the National Insurance Crime Bureau has rated the county as one of the top 10 regions in the country for auto theft per capita, although actual thefts have declined.

Besides Yakima, the sheriff's office and Toppenish police are also using versions of the automatic license plate reader, officials said.

The plate reader can scan through 15 plates a second at highway speeds, said Officer Phil Posada, one of several Yakima officers trained to use the equipment.

Although Posada hadn't encountered a stolen car yet during his shift, other officers have been luckier. One officer recovered a stolen car on every day of his shift for a total of five, Granato said.

None of the cars has been occupied, but Granato said he expects that the plate reader will eventually lead to suspects.

The sheriff's office was able to seek charges in a theft case thanks to its plate reader, said Chief Deputy Dave Thompson.

The deputy assigned to the plate-reader car knew that a certain car was being sought in connection with suspicious attempts to sell horse tack in the West Valley area, so he manually entered the plate into the alert system.

He encountered the car late at night on Summitview Avenue and stopped it. Although there wasn't enough information to make immediate arrests, deputies say they later learned that the tack had been taken from a victim on White Pass.

Funding for the plate readers -- which cost nearly $30,000 apiece -- comes through grants coordinated by the Washington Auto Theft Prevention Authority. The grants also have paid for overtime patrols targeting auto theft.

A $10 surcharge on traffic tickets funds the authority's grants.

Yakima police plan to purchase another plate reader using the rest of the current grant, and the sheriff's office hopes to receive another.

* Mark Morey can be reached at 509-577-7671 or mmorey@yakimaherald.com.