A Central Valley city reimagined what proactive code enforcement could look like: less punitive, more equitable, and grounded in community education.

In early 2025, the City of Stockton’s Code Enforcement Division had six open officer vacancies. That left just 12 officers to cover 65 square miles and serve more than 319,500 residents. The math simply didn’t work. Proactive inspections were impossible, enforcement had become almost entirely complaint-driven, and visible deterioration including graffiti, overgrown lots, boarded windows, and abandoned vehicles was persisting across neighborhoods with no systematic way to address it.

“We are only essentially complaint-driven, where we should be doing proactive work and utilizing education among the citizens. But because of the staffing, we have not been able to do that,” said Almarosa Vargas, Police Services Manager for Code Enforcement.

The consequences went beyond aesthetics. Existing city programs including free graffiti removal and abandoned vehicle towing were being underutilized simply because staff couldn’t consistently identify where and when to deploy them. And because enforcement was complaint-driven, neighborhoods with lower complaint volumes were being systematically underserved, even when conditions warranted attention. The result was an inequitable system that left some communities without the same access to city services as others.

Stockton’s answer was the RISE program, Revitalizing and Improving Stockton through Education, launched in January 2025 in partnership with City Detect. The name is intentional. This wasn’t designed as a surveillance or citation program. It was designed as an outreach program, with enforcement as a last resort rather than a first response.

The mechanics are straightforward. City vehicles equipped with cameras capture street-level imagery during normal patrol routines, covering the same public rights-of-way that code officers have always been authorized to observe. City Detect’s PASS AI® platform analyzes those images and flags potential blight conditions, which are then mapped and made available for officer review. Critically, no action is taken based on AI detection alone. Every flagged property is reviewed by a human officer before any communication goes out. The system is a tool for seeing more clearly, not for automating consequences.

When a case is escalated, the first step isn’t a citation. It’s a letter. A personalized, bilingual notice that includes a photo of the specific condition identified, a plain-language explanation of the relevant city code, and information about free city services that can help the resident fix the problem. Stockton’s Abandoned Vehicle Abatement program removes non-operational vehicles at no cost to the property owner. The city’s graffiti abatement team will repaint vandalized surfaces with the owner’s consent. RISE made sure residents knew these services existed.

“When I first saw the demo of City Detect, I knew that it could be something that would help us with that educational component,” said Vargas. “To educate the citizens on what they should and should not be doing within the city of Stockton limits.”

The data from Stockton’s initial implementation revealed just how much complaint-driven enforcement had been missing. The system analyzed 39,740 parcels, identified 13,852 unique issues across 74 distinct issue types, and found that 23% of parcels had at least one detectable condition. In two districts, that figure climbed to nearly 30%. These weren’t new problems. They were longstanding conditions that had gone unaddressed because the city had no equitable, systematic way to find them across all neighborhoods, regardless of who complained and who didn’t.

“Even if I was fully staffed, I don’t believe we’d be able to identify the number of issues that are out there,” Vargas acknowledged.

The educational approach proved decisive. Of roughly 2,000 proactive compliance notices delivered in the program’s early weeks, 80% of recipients complied with the city’s request. The notices worked not because they threatened consequences, but because they informed residents, many of whom simply didn’t know they were in violation, and connected them to resources that could help.

“We’re just trying to give people an extra opportunity to correct the violations before we even start that process,” Vargas noted, emphasizing that education wasn’t just about efficiency. It was about fairness.

The program also changed how officers spend their time. With PASS AI® handling first-touch communication and administrative staff monitoring compliance across detection cycles, field officers can focus on higher-priority or repeat violations rather than speculative neighborhood drives. For a department managing over 15,000 annual cases with a skeleton crew, that redistribution of effort is critical.

City Detect is now expanding its work with Stockton into a 60-day pilot with the Public Works Department, focused on identifying and routing the removal of roadside debris and illegal dumping including tires, mattresses, electronics, and appliances. The pilot integrates with Stockton’s Cityworks case management system, generating optimized cleanup routes directly from PASS AI® detections and prioritizing sites by need and geographic density.

“City Detect’s integration into our RISE program gave us the clarity and control we needed to address blight proactively. We’re seeing neighborhoods respond, not out of fear, but out of shared investment in their community,” said Vargas.

For cities wrestling with the widening gap between community expectations and available resources, Stockton’s model offers a clear lesson: the answer isn’t always more staff. Sometimes it’s smarter tools, an education-first philosophy, and a genuine commitment to reaching every neighborhood equitably. RISE didn’t just help Stockton find more violations. It gave the city a way to resolve them that residents could actually get behind.

For more information about City Detect’s PASS AI® platform, visit citydetect.com.