Civil rights groups have released a new report that says most major metropolitan police departments have failed to set out clear rules when it comes to having police wear body cameras, or rules governing exactly how bodycam footage can be used, and said most departments aren’t making their policies available to the public.
The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, a policy and lobbying organization that represents more than 200 major national civil rights groups, joined with technology consulting firm Upturn to develop a policy scorecard for major cities. The scorecard examined the policies put forth by 25 police departments nationwide, including the 15 largest city forces based on Justice Department funding, that either have body-camera programs or pilot body camera programs.
“Not since 50 years ago, when the brutal images of the Bloody Sunday marchers being savagely beaten in Selma, Alabama, were broadcast across the nation, have we seen video make such a profound impact on our nation’s public discourse,” Leadership Conference president Wade Henderson told reporters Monday. “Today’s citizen-recorded videos have inspired the nation once again. When one hears Eric Garner’s plea that he ‘can’t breathe’ or sees Walter Scott being shot from behind, it’s hard not to be moved.”
The new scorecard report follows the body-worn camera policy guidelines released in May by the Leadership Conference and is the first one that grades how departments are doing. The scorecard evaluates whether each police department:
- Makes its policy publicly and readily available
- Limits officer discretion on when to record
- Addresses personal privacy concerns
- Prohibits officer pre-report viewing
- Limits retention of footage
- Protects footage against tampering and misuse
- Makes footage available to individuals filing complaints
- Limits the use of biometric technologies.
But according to the group, not one police department passed all eight evaluations. Atlanta and Ferguson, Mo., failed all eight, meaning the two departments either had a poor policy regarding body-worn cameras or failed to put for a specific policy at all.
Though city departments in Philadelphia, Detroit, San Antonio and Albuquerque have deployed body cameras, they all failed to release any policy.
About a third of all departments do not make their policies public and readily available on the department’s websites. And according to Harlan Yu, a technologist at Upturn, every department examined allows its officers to watch video of an incident before filing a report, giving officers “an undue advantage over other witnesses in a court of law.”
Only a few cities like Parker, Colo., and Washington, D.C., scored well. Those cities provide individuals, including those seeking to file a police misconduct complaint, with a specific process to view the footage captured by the body cameras. But even those cities meet just four of the eight standards put forward by the group.
Baltimore’s police department is the only city with a policy that limits the use of biometric technologies (such as facial recognition), a step that the Leadership Conference believes “will help improve community relations and dampen fears about the surveillance potential that cameras could bring.”
Other departments such as the New York Police Department, the Chicago Police Department and the Los Angeles Police Department, the three largest that were reviewed, not only put forth policies limiting the officers’ discretion on when to record, but had policies addressing privacy concerns for vulnerable individuals, such as victims of sex crimes.
“Our goal is to help departments improve their policies, by bringing attention to areas where policy improvements can be made, and by highlighting promising policy language from around the country,” Yu concluded.
Major groups that have signed onto the Leadership Conference’s suggested policies include the ACLU, the NCAAP and the National Urban League.
View the full scorecard here.
