Deeper Dive into Body Camera Report

The report is 47 pages long, I skimmed it, but it was enough for me to go back and take another look.  Here’s my take-aways.

Perhaps its not inconclusive, it actually might say no need to use body worn cameras!  There seems to be no benefit identified.

My first take away is this – read the report carefully, the police department report of Dr. Turner’s report can confuse, read Dr. Turner’s language and don’t let the rest of it lead you in a different direction.

• Overall, the provided data and analysis reveal that officers in the North district increase their knowledge of BWC, but little else is impacted – including community attitudes and beliefs, arrest, citations, or cases.
• it is currently unfeasible to determine if BWC have long term impact on community for interactions with a longer time horizon, such as criminal trials or civil trials.
• However, the pilot program has been effective in demonstrating that body-worn cameras may bring higher police capability on evidence collecting with no significant change on police behavior.
• Addressing technical challenges and educating the community on guidelines are recommended to maximize BWC effectiveness.

MADISON POLICE DEPARTMENT REPORT

BACKGROUND

According to the report, here is what they did:

The experiment program consisted of technology, research and cost estimates. The technology portion began April 1, 2024, and was completed July 14. The BWC units were worn by officers in the North District. The first two weeks consisted of setting up and assigning units to officers, testing, and training. The use of body worn cameras began in the field on April 15. The BWC units were loaned by MPD’s existing dash camera vendor for the duration of experiment. 2 The research was conducted by an outside researcher; Dr. Broderick Turner at Virginia Tech. Police Director Eleazer Hunt and members of the BWC Committee met with Dr. Turner multiple times to identify needed data and survey questions.

POLICE DEPARTMENT FINDINGS

Findings from the experiment:

1 – Officers did not change behavior while wearing a BWC

2 – Charges were not added when officers reviewed video

3 – Technical issues related to battery life and uploading video were evident in the first half of the experiment and resolved

4 – Specific situational use of BWC required clarification of the SOP

5 – The limitations of the experiment included a short duration, a small number of officers participated, there was limited time for analysis (interviews), and no post-experiment analysis

6 – BWC may help with trust building, legitimacy, and transparency

I’m pretty sure I rolled my eyes at least three times reading this.  How do they know officers didn’t change their behavior while wearing the cameras?  Half the experiment had tech issues?  They also see problems in that the experiment was short, only a small number participated and there was limited analysis.   And after all that, it may help with trust building, legitimacy and transparency.

In other words, this is trash.  Hardly makes you want to finish reading the report after reading the introduction.

But I did . . .

TIMELINE

The short 90-day experiment, where the technology wasn’t working half the time was only 45 days with working equipment.

• January – April – Contract for equipment and develop research objects and methodology to include survey instruments and data needs
• April 1 – 14 – Equipment installed and tested; BWC SOP training conducted
• April 15 – Experiment Begins; Survey of North and South District Officers begins
• May 30 – Mid experiment (45 day) survey of Officers
• July 14 – Use of BWC ends. Post-experiment officer survey initiated
• July 15 – 17 – BWC equipment collected
• August 1 – Case Processing checks that all North District reports are in the system
• August 1 – Identify budget analysis team and start costing research
• August 8 – Data team extracts data, reviews, and sends to Dr. Turner
• September 4 –  Dr. Turner’s last day of interviewing officers and community members
• October 4 – Dr. Turner’s report finalized and submitted to MPD
• October – November – Write report and finalize cost estimates
• November 15 – Deadline to submit City Council

CHANGES IN OFFICER BEHAVIOR MEASURED BY

• Number of calls for service
• Number of reports written
• Number of citations and charges
• Type of calls for service
• Type of charges and citations

Not sure this is what the community thinks of when it thinks of officer behavior.

ISSUES WITH THE CAMERAS

• 52 (5.83%) respondents did have reliability issues related to the BWC units’ batteries/charging, mounting/the unit fell off their uniform, accessibility of locating the correct button(s), uploading video, or “other.” The largest percentage of the equipment malfunctions was related to the units falling off. This occurred primarily with magnetic mounts, when officers switched to another mount type these malfunctions no longer occurred.
• Battery/Charging and uploading video malfunctions also occurred with a greater frequency at the beginning of the experiment. Working with the vendor, City Information Technology and MPD Information Management and Technology made several technical changes that reduced these issues. For example, it was determined that a continuous Bluetooth connection to a smartphone reduced battery life to less than eight hours. In response officers were encouraged to disconnect from the BWC app when it was not being actively used.

PUBLIC REQUESTS TO TURN OFF CAMERA

Did you know you could do that?

• During the experiment when officers interacted with the public there were seldom instances when a victim, witness, or community member asked an officer to turn off the BWC. These amounted to less than one percent of interactions and officers complied with these requests.

REVIEWING VIDEO BEFORE WRITING REPORT

If they weren’t relying on the video to assist with reporting, why were they reviewing the video?  And if the officers said yes that they used it in crafting their police report, how do they come to the conclusion that it wasn’t used?  The survey seems to directly contradict the conclusion in the report.

• During the experiment, video was reviewed 88 times (10%) prior to writing a report. Officers did not rely on video review to assist with reporting.

AUDIO TURNED OFF 46% OF THE TIME

Why?  They claim there was no misuse, but how do they know?  No mention of what they did to measure this.

• BWC video continues recording even when the audio is muted. During the experiment, audio was muted for some duration 413 times (46%) during calls for service. Muting may occur while officers are listening to the radio where the information is not related to the event they are supporting, discussing investigations, conferring with a supervisor, or at a medical facility. There is utility in muting as it saves staff time during the redaction process when audio and video is reviewed and redacted to comply with Wisconsin open records law. There were no indicators of misuse of the muting option on the BWC’s during the experiment.

OPEN RECORDS REQUESTS 4/1-10/1

If redactions are needed, it takes 6 hour of staff time to fullfill the request.  They later say they need to hire 2 full time people just to review the videos.

• Of these 321 requests 207 were requests for body camera recordings, excluding dash camera and CCTV records. Every request required staff time to research and locate appropriate files. On average the time per search is roughly 20 minutes per request. This means that staff spent roughly 70 hours searching for videos associated with these requests. This step of the process is completed by a team of 5 Information Clerks.
• Of the 207 requests 141 of them either resulted in no relevant records (NRR) or the request was a duplicate or withdrawn at some point in the process by the requestor.
• Of the remaining 66 requests, four (4) video requests were released in their full unredacted form, 30 video requests required redactions, 15 video requests were denied in accordance with Wisconsin public records laws, and 17 were still in the review process as of October 20th.
• Of the 66 requests that went through the review process at least 34 of these requests were viewed in real time – if the video was twenty minutes in length, it was viewed for twenty minutes – to see if redactions were needed. 30 of these requests required redactions. These redactions required the real time viewing of 85 hours of video. When the redaction and administrative time is considered, the redactions require more than 180 hours of staff time. This work is done by a team of four (4) program assistants and the redactions are applied by two (2) lab technicians. This works out to approximately six (6) hours of staff time per request. The inclusion of BWC as a public record has an impact on staff and processing time.

APPENDIX A — DR. TURNER’S REPORT

DR. TURNER’S CONCLUSIONS

• Overall, this research uncovers that the introduction of BWC in the North district does improve officer knowledge about BWC but has limited effect on their beliefs and attitudes about BWC.
• Second, from post-police interaction surveys, this research finds that there is negligible change to community attitudes and beliefs towards the Madison Police Department due to the pilot. However, focus groups with community members in the North district do reveal that community members have privacy concerns about BWC.
• Third, in exploring data on cases, arrests, and citations, this research finds that the BWC pilot has no detectable effect on these metrics.

Noted in the report:  The largest review to date found across 70 empirical papers that BWCs have not had “statistically significant or consistent effects on most measures of officer and citizen behavior or citizens’ views of police

4 QUESTIONS STUDIED

• In particular, this report aims to isolate if the introduction of Body Worn Cameras (BWC) to patrol officers in Madison’s North district has an effect on 1) officer knowledge and beliefs about BWC, 2) community attitudes and beliefs towards the Madison Police Department and BWC, 3) officer and community interactions.
  • Officer Knowledge
    • Overall, these results suggest that the BWC pilot increased officer knowledge of BWC but did not impact their other beliefs about BWC (Usefulness, Accountability, Officer Safety, Community Safety, Behavior Change).
  • Community Beliefs
    • If the BWC pilot had an effect on any of these community belief variables one would expect that there is an interaction effect with the time of the survey and the district in which the survey was administered. However, for none of the collected measures is there a significant interaction of time and district, indicating that the BWC pilot had little to no effect on these measures.
  • Officer-Community Interaction
    • First, in examining the effect of the BWC pilot (i.e., North district between April 1, 2024, and June 30, 2024) the difference in differences analysis finds that there is no effect of the BWC pilot on arrests, cases, or citations.

COMMUNITY BELIEFS RESEARCH

Although it says there was little difference, it might be worth it to take a look, as after the experiment it seems that the results were worse in many areas than it was before the pilot.

• Data was provided from the Victim Acknowledgment Message (VAM) Survey. These messages are sent by community engagement research firm, Versaterm SPIDR Tech as a text message with survey link 3 days after a police-community member interaction. The analyzed data included survey responses from January 1, 2024, until September 7, 2024, covering 90 days before the pilot, and 69 days after the pilot was complete. In total, 2633 messages were sent in this time period. 513 individuals started the survey, and 19% of the total completed the survey.

QUALITATIVE REPORT

• The following qualitative data report is based on two focus groups conducted with five community members from the North district and two one-on-one in-depth interviews with police officers from the Madison Police Department regarding the pilot program on body worn cameras in the North district of Madison, Wisconsin.
• A few interesting comments
  • Officers interviewed believed that body worn camera and active recording of police-citizen encounters had no significant effect on their behavior (Note: Our empirical analysis may support this belief).
  • As mentioned by a police officer, body worn cameras may encourage them to be nicer and kinder towards citizens since they are being recorded. Since the footage of an encounter will be evidence against a complaint, it is likely that we will see that police and community relations will be moving in a positive direction.
  • Our focus groups with community members demonstrate to us that the biggest challenge that body worn cameras will face is citizens’ privacy concerns.
  • Our participants have brought up a possible drawback to the present surveillance of body cams – being in a crime scene that one is not a part of can have consequences for an individual. Moreover, conditions in which one is being filmed has been questioned – specifically for sensitive cases such as mental health crisis or suicide attempts. Our participants have mentioned that one should not be filmed in these conditions as this would be a violation of human dignity. Police officers have addressed these concerns by mentioning that certain guidelines do not allow them to record in particular cases. In addition, some practices such as background blurring would provide more focused evidence collection and take citizens’ privacy rights into account. However, we see an information asymmetry between citizens and police organizations. While Standard Operating Procedure and guidelines are perfectly clear for police officers, community members have shown a significant lack of information as to the usage of cameras in an encounter
  • From the police officers’ perspective, our participants have informed us about some practical challenges in their daily usage. These challenges would include the short battery life and blocked view through body movements. These concerns should be attended by the organization for increased efficiency of body worn cameras

DR. TURNER’S CONCLUSION

• The preceding report attempts to isolate the effect of BWC on the North district of Madison. Overall, the provided data and analysis reveal that officers in the North district increase their knowledge of BWC, but little else is impacted – including community attitudes and beliefs, arrest, citations, or cases. These results should be considered with some caveats. First, the pilot was both short (90 days) and only involved 42 officers. A longer and more powered pilot would provide even stronger evidence of BWC impact. Also, because of the length of the pilot and the short turn-around time of this report (90 days after the completion of the pilot), it is currently unfeasible to determine if BWC have long term impact on community for interactions with a longer time horizon, such as criminal trials or civil trials. Given a longer time frame more interviews with community members and officers could have been conducted, giving an even richer understanding of the effect of BWCs.
• As a whole, the empirical analysis and in-depth conversations with police officers’ and community indicate that although there are concerns regarding privacy and practical challenges. However, the pilot program has been effective in demonstrating that body-worn cameras may bring higher police capability on evidence collecting with no significant change on police behavior. We note that community members in our focus groups welcome BWC for their potential to increase transparency and build trust between community and police officers. However, addressing technical challenges and educating the community on guidelines are recommended to maximize BWC effectiveness.

APPENDIX B — BUDGET

• Funding for the one-time experimental program ($83,000) was included in the police department’s adopted capital budget.
  • Most of these funds (approximately $49,000) were used to contract with an independent researcher, Dr. Broderick Turner, to evaluate outcomes of the experimental program (see report attached).
  • They throw in this sentence, but it doesn’t seem to say what Dr. Turner says above “Dr. Turner’s evaluation suggests that the broad use of BWCs by the MPD could change relationships between the police and community in positive ways, including increased trust, transparency and legitimacy. “
• MPD has provided staffing need projections in the past for a full implementation plan and these costs are consistent with past reports.
  • Forensic Lab Technician $87,434,10
  • Management Information Specialist 2 $87,434.10
  • Program Assistant 1 $66,273.85
  • Clerk Typist $51,077.43
  • Required Staffing Total $292,219.50 in annual costs
• A full implementation plan for BWC technology would equip almost every commissioned officer with a body worn camera. To do this, MPD’s full implementation plan would require the acquisition of 450 body worn cameras along with related accessories and software.
  • A full implementation plan would likely require a competitive RFP process, and it is not known if the department would continue with the Panasonic Arbitrator system or not. Moving to a new vendor and system would create additional costs that could be significant since current cameras in MPD interview rooms and squad cars may also have to be replaced (if Panasonic Arbitrator is not chosen) to ensure compatibility.
• Should the MPD pursue a BWC program that broadly deploys BWC technology to all commissioned staff members, the costs to acquire the technology and related accessories and software would range from $3,200,000 – $6,700,000.

POLICY ON BODY WORN CAMERAS DURING PILOT STUDY – APPENDIX C

A few items of note:

• Recordings created during training or orientation of the BWC program will be retained for no longer than 30 days.
• To facilitate proficiency with the BWC, for the first 60 calendar days of any Department member first entering an assignment that requires the wearing of a BWC, that/those member(s) shall not be subject to discipline for errors in applying this policy that are not intentional.
• The Body Worn Camera (BWC) shall be activated prior to arrival at a call for service, in anticipation of a self-initiated activity, or at the activation of emergency equipment (emergency lights and/or siren), whichever occurs first. This shall also include interactions that are related to or for the purpose of a law enforcement function.
• It is recognized that officers utilizing a take home vehicle may need to make enforcement stops or respond to a law enforcement need while traveling to and from work, which may result in activities not being recorded. When this occurs the officer shall document their actions and reason for not having their BWC within the CAD notes of the associated event.
• Certain specialized units may request deviation from the BWC requirements of this policy with the express written approval of the affected personnel’s District Commander.
• The use of any surreptitious recording function or “Stealth Mode” on the BWC is prohibited. At least one of the status indicators must be activated (auditory beeps, indicator light, or vibratory alert).
• Whenever possible, officers should inform individuals that they are being recorded. I
• If an officer fails to activate the BWC, fails to record the entire contact, or interrupts the recording, the officer shall document this in an email to his or her supervisor before the end of the shift; why a recording was not made, was interrupted, or was terminated. The supervisor should review the email and determine if the rationale was appropriate.
• Members of the public shall not be allowed to review the recordings at the scene unless there is an immediate public safety need.
• Officers shall not intentionally use a BWC to record the following locations or circumstances:
  • Places where privacy expectations are paramount, such as, but not limited to: hospital emergency rooms, locker rooms, and restrooms, except in the following instances:
    • a. When all parties visibly or audibly recorded consent to such recording.
    • b. While conducting an arrest;
    • c. While executing a search warrant;
    • d. When all parties visibly or audibly recorded consent to such recording;
    • e. Under any other extraordinary circumstances that are likely to involve confrontations between police and members of the public, such as warrantless entry into a home pursuant to exigent circumstances.
  • While on the grounds of any public, private or parochial elementary or secondary school, except when:
    • a. responding to an imminent threat to life or health,
    • b. during custodial interrogations of juveniles,
    • c. when responding to an otherwise recordable incident involving only individuals known to police to be adults.
    • d. Any inadvertent filming of juveniles shall be redacted;
  • Activity that is unrelated to a response to a call for service or a law enforcement/investigative encounter between an officer and a member of the public;
  • The BWC will not be used specifically to record fellow city employees except during an official PSIA investigation or a suspected violation of criminal, traffic, or local law; or during an officer’s field training as prescribed by the FTO program.
  • Gruesome images, persons nude or exposed, sensitive human areas, but only if the privacy considerations attendant to such images cannot adequately be accommodated by subsequent redaction or pixilation and are so significant that they justify compromising the integrity of the recording by interrupting continuous recording;
  • Body cameras shall not be used for any intelligence-gathering efforts involving activities in which subjects are engaging in First Amendment protected speech, associations, or religion, such as but not limited to participation in peaceful protests, attendance at religious services or ceremonies, attending neighborhood or community engagement events or meetings, engaging in normal daily social activities that raise no reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, or delivering or attending a lecture, presentation, debate, or similar events;
  • Conversations among law enforcement personnel that are not participated in by members of the public, but only when this is not in conflict with the requirement for continuous recording as identified elsewhere in this SOP;
  • Officers will not record any Court proceedings, pre-trial conferences, or any other judicial proceedings, including those at the Magistrate’s Office.
    • This does not prohibit an Officer, if equipped with a BWC, from activating it when responding to a disturbance or call for service within such a setting
    • This does not prohibit an Officer, if so equipped, from demonstrating the placement or activation of a BWC when asked to do so as part of Court testimony or questioning.
• Deactivation
  • Once the BWC is activated, officers will continue to record until the conclusion of their involvement in an event. In most situations, conclusion of involvement in an event would be signified by leaving the scene. Only under the following circumstances may an officer deactivate their BWC prior to concluding their involvement in an event:
    • When the officer’s on-scene investigation is complete and he/she is prepared to complete a report.
    • When directed by the on-scene supervisor or with supervisory approval. If a supervisor directs the Officer to cease recording, the supervisor shall complete a report documenting the rationale for this decision.
    • Prior to conducting a strip search, the officer will record a 360-degree video of the location where the strip search will be conducted. During the actual strip search, the BWC shall be utilized to only capture audio of the event by positioning the camera away from the subject of the search.
    • When an officer receives an assignment such as traffic direction, crime scene security, or while awaiting other services such as crime scene processing or medical examiner transportation, etc. It is common for these assignments to last for extended periods of time, with minimal contact with the public. In these situations, the officer may deactivate their BWC without awaiting direction from a supervisor. If the officer becomes engaged in any contact that becomes adversarial they shall activate their BWC.
    • When taking statements from/conducting interviews of persons who are victims of a crime of a sexual nature or medical professionals providing information pertaining to related examination(s) of the victim. Upon completion of the interview, the BWC should be reactivated until completion of the event.
    • When taking statements from juvenile witnesses/victims. Upon completion of the interview, the BWC should be reactivated until completion of the event.
    • When requested to do so by victims or witnesses as a condition of their cooperation prior to beginning an interview, taking a statement, or gathering information (this applies only once the scene is orderly and the situation is under control and NOT to the relaying of initial suspect information to be disseminated to other officers or for the purpose of initial alerts). The individual’s request to deactivate the BWC shall be captured on the BWC recording prior to deactivation. Upon completion of the interview, the BWC should be reactivated until completion of the event.
    • If it is determined that the interaction involves a known confidential informant while they are providing information regarding an investigation or potential investigation as an informant.
    • When officers are relaying/discussing information amongst themselves, in the absence of any parties to the incident. The BWC should be reactivated at the conclusion of this interaction.
    • Officers deactivating their BWC for any reason must indicate on the BWC recording their reason for deactivating prior to ending the recording. Additionally, the officer must notify their supervisor of the deactivation and be able to articulate the reason for doing so.
• Officers shall immediately inform their supervisor of any recordings that may contain illegal activity, a violation of SOP, or excessive use of force by a member of the law enforcement profession.
• If the Officer’s BWC captured any instances of reportable force, the BWC shall be downloaded no later than the end of the Officer’s shift.
• For any incident that is subject to recording via police body-worn cameras pursuant to this policy (whether the body-worn cameras were actually activated or not), the Department shall permit members of the public to submit or otherwise upload recordings of the same incident. Such footage shall be treated as if it were also body-worn camera footage, in accordance with all other policies outlined within this document.
• Body camera video footage shall be retained for six (6) months (180 days per MPD approved Records Retention/Disposition Authorization) unless that video is tagged as evidentiary in value, has a pending public records request, is the subject of litigation, or is identified as relevant to a PSIA investigation.
• Members of the public are not allowed to view BWC recordings outside of the Open Records process unless permission has been obtained from the Chief of Police, in accordance with public records law and as prescribed by Departmental Policy.
• All supervisors are expected to routinely review BWC recordings created by their direct subordinates.
  • On a monthly basis, supervisors shall audit the BWC footage of their Officers for the previous month, ensuring that videos are being labeled and that the labeling is of the correct formatting.
  • During this review supervisors shall view a minimum of 2 videos from each officer under their supervision, looking at the content of the video. These videos shall be a minimum of 10 minutes each.
  • In addition, supervisors shall review BWC footage (and associated reports) of any uses of force and vehicle/foot pursuits for all officers under their purview