Technological advances in law enforcement have made video a critical component of an officer’s day-to-day tool kit. Video sources in law enforcement include traffic cameras; privately owned video surveillance systems; in-car cameras; body-worn cameras; and, in many cases, individually owned cellphones. Each of these video tools has advanced law enforcements’ ability to gather evidence, solve crimes, resolve complaints, investigate uses of force, and apprehend criminals. Video technology is also designed to enhance transparency and accountability between the law enforcement agency and the public while assisting in the clarification of perception of an incident. While on-scene video technologies such as in-car cameras and body-cameras, can provide valuable information, there are certain considerations that agencies should consider prior to diving head first into video technology.
Video evidence has quickly evolved into an expectation among the public and media. All too frequently, the media is able to broadcast cellphone video taken by bystanders of a citizen-police encounter, and, generally, only the moment where a significant use of force occurs is shown, which leaves out critical details of what led up to the encounter. Law enforcement’s adoption of video technology allows agencies to provide a more complete picture of what really occurred. There are a variety of video technologies available to agencies, but budget restrictions often force agencies to choose between one technology or another. Understanding these tools’ uses, advantages, limitations, and differences can help agencies when selecting an appropriate technology for their needs.
In-car Video Systems
In-car camera systems have been around since the 1980s. Their initial primary purposes were to provide for officer safety and to capture moving violations. The original systems were quite bulky and used VCR technology that resulted in stacks of tapes that needed to be stored. The camera quality and field of view were also limited. However, in-car camera technology has greatly improved in recent years with the development of HD cameras and digital storage solutions, making the technology much more user friendly. The systems have also expanded their fields of view from simply showing a frontal view from the cruiser to side, rear, and panoramic views, as well as adding the capability to monitor the backseat area of the vehicle. Some other capabilities of the in-car camera systems include, but are not limited to
- a wide, stable field of view — many systems offer 120 degrees of horizontal view or more, which can provide an excellent overall picture of an event;
- the ability to capture moving vehicle violations, which provides valuable court evidence;
- an accurate depiction of pursuit and emergency driving actions;
- excellent audio capabilities to document the conversation between an officer and a driver of a vehicle; and
- the ability to monitor a prisoner’s actions while he or she is in the back of the cruiser.
Other advantages include unlimited battery life, pre-activation playback capabilities, and audio recording that extends beyond the camera’s field of view (within certain distances).
Body-Worn Camera Systems
Body-worn cameras (BWCs) have become more prominent in law enforcement in recent years. Like in-car systems, this technology continues to rapidly evolve. Early versions of BWCs were bulky and offered limited camera view angles. Although still a work in progress, vendors now offer a variety of uniform mounting options, enhanced camera angles, and batteries that are better able to accommodate an officer’s entire shift. Some advantages of BWCs include, but are not limited to, the following features:
- The camera goes where the officer goes, allowing the capture of video and audio evidence even when the circumstances are away from the vehicle.
- BWC has the potential to capture more face-to-face encounters with the public, which may aid in showing suspect actions that lead to use of force or enforcement actions. Many systems have automatic activation “triggers” to help eliminate circumstances where the camera is inadvertently not turned on.
The in-car camera systems and BWCs each have advantages over one another. One of these areas is the view of the camera itself. BWCs give a closer perspective of the event than the in-car camera. The in-car camera video has improved in quality and field of view, but the BWC provides a much closer view of a citizen, suspect, or critical event. This closer view can give the viewer a much clearer picture of the event, including the emotion involved in many incidents. This emotional aspect that is captured is not only from the victim of a crime, but also the officer involved in a critical incident. Audio from an in-car camera can also provide the emotional aspect of an incident, but the BWC video can potentially allow the viewer to see facial expressions, body language, and other nonverbal cues that audio alone cannot provide. With an incident that occurs a great distance from the patrol car, in-car camera systems might not capture needed video evidence. On the other hand, use-of-force incidents (especially situations that involve “hands-on” techniques) often occur in such close proximity to suspects that the BWC might be unable to provide a clear view of the actions taken. For example, the BWC might not capture nuances of suspect movements, such as when the suspect “muscles up” or “tenses up,” while in-car systems usually capture the event from a greater distance and are able to provide a better overall picture of what happened that may include subtle movements.
The capturing of evidence is another area where there are differences in what each system can provide. The BWC allows an officer to gather evidence that might be out of the field of view of the in-car camera. This includes interviews with victims and witnesses inside residences or other places away from the vehicle. Many officers employed by municipal police departments or sheriff’s offices spend a great percentage of their daily responsibilities handling calls for service rather than conducting traffic stops. The BWC is able to accompany the officer on almost any call. However, the BWC is very limited in capturing any type of traffic violation, which is a large portion of the daily duties of many state police and patrol agencies, as well as an important task performed by all municipal and county agencies.
In-car cameras have a distinct advantage over body cameras when the incident involves emergency driving or vehicular pursuits. The in-car camera gives a much better field of view with greater image stability. The in-car point of view not only provides excellent evidence, but also provides a great training tool for other officers on these high-liability events. The BWC may be activated during a vehicle pursuit, but, depending on mounting options, it can have limited viewing capabilities and might only capture the steering wheel of the cruiser, not the driver’s actions. Where the BWC has an advantage is during quickly evolving situations such as a use of force or foot pursuits. The BWC footage provides a great perspective of the action and officer commands during these situations; however, the video, especially during foot pursuits, is often very shaky and hard to analyze. In addition, agencies must be mindful that during physical encounters or foot pursuits, the BWC might fall off or can be bumped and inadvertently turned off.
Other Considerations
When an agency adopts video technology, it should anticipate that virtually every citizen encounter, call for service, or law enforcement action is going to be recorded. While these recordings are often superb evidence, in many cases, the unintended consequences can be burdensome not only for agencies but for other segments of the criminal justice system, as well. The first consideration is data storage. This concern and the options of in-house storage versus cloud storage have been discussed at length in many publications, so it will not be dwelt upon here; however, as camera technology advances and provides higher resolution rates, the amount of storage necessary also increases and must be accounted for when implementing a video technology.
Aside from storage, the volume of videos produced also creates a number of “downstream” effects. Consider any call for service that requires multiple officers to respond and each officer has video (either in-car or BWC). If five officers respond on a call that lasts approximately one hour, a total of five hours of video is produced. This is five hours of video that must be reviewed by investigators to document and determine what video is of evidentiary value prior to sending the case on to the appropriate prosecutor, which can hinder time management for investigators.
Prosecutors are also significantly impacted by video. Similar to investigators, the prosecutor now has volumes of video to review on a major case. This has the potential to add hours to the preparation of a quality case. In addition, many judicial districts contain multiple agencies within them that all may be using different vendors for video. How are law enforcement agencies going to supply the prosecutor with the video? Depending on the size of the agency it might not be feasible to have evidentiary video forwarded on a disc. Some vendors have created backend video management systems (VMS) that will allow prosecutors to access the pertinent video on their own. This has the potential to save the law enforcement agency a great deal of time and possibly reduce the number of staff dedicated to video management. However, in judicial districts that have multiple agencies that may all be using different vendors for video, even this can be problematic, requiring the prosecutor to have knowledge of numerous systems with numerous passwords. The entire process can become further complicated when providing discovery to defense attorneys.
A final consideration is staffing a well-run program. This is one of the most difficult, but most important, areas to address when considering the implementation of video technology. A camera program is much more than putting cameras in cars or on officers and hoping for the best. Technology can be fragile or break easily. Who is going to handle inventory, spare cameras, and repairs and returns? Is this an ancillary duty for an existing staff member? What about public requests for video—how many requests can an agency expect? What kind of staffing is going to be required to process the requests, redact videos if necessary, and get the videos to the requestor? As with many other aspects of a video program, there is no standard answer and staffing needs are specific to each agency. Factors such as state records release laws and agency policy related to records release will play a big role in the number of requests that are processed and how much staff time will be dedicated to handling those requests. Vendors are making good gains on providing products that help automate the redaction process, but the video still has to be reviewed to determine what needs to be redacted, which takes time.
Conclusion
Each law enforcement agency varies in demographics, size, types of calls, and topography; thus, each agency must evaluate what type of video technology fits best into the majority of its daily activity. Both in-car video systems and BWC technology will continue to advance as the demand for high-quality video evidence continues, and many vendors are beginning to offer in-car cameras systems that are fully integrated and compatible with BWC systems, giving agencies the best of both worlds. Ideally, each officer would be equipped with both types of cameras, but this is not always practical or financially feasible.
Any video project must be evaluated based on the mission, capacity, and resources of the agency. Each agency must consider the financial implications, IT resources, available storage options, and individual policies that are specific to the jurisdiction. The decision-making process should also include an analysis of the impact to criminal justice partners as well as the implications of the state or country’s public open records policy. In areas with liberal public open records laws, redaction may be a full-time job and require additional personnel.
While digital video evidence is a great tool, agencies and the public must realize that no technology is perfect. There will be tradeoffs when selecting one technology over the other. Even if an agency is fortunate enough to have both technologies, there will be times when key factors leading to or integral to a critical incident will not be fully captured by any video platform. When this happens, law enforcement will still have to rely on “old-fashioned” investigative techniques to determine what happened.
