Police Increasingly Rely on Video Technology as Critics Question Effectiveness

On Behalf of | Oct 2, 2024 | Criminal Defense, Felonies |

Extensive Chicago Police Surveillance System Falls Short of Expectations

The city of Chicago has one of the largest and most sophisticated surveillance networks in the United States, at great expense to the city’s taxpayers, but a recent investigation found that in practice the network of roughly 4,400 surveillance cameras is underutilized by the Chicago Police Department (CPD). Starting in 2001, the city began installing POD cameras in various locations around the city, some of which can rotate 360 degrees, zoom in from far distances, and are accessible from remote police stations, costing the city at least $279 million. According to that investigation, relying on records requests because much of the data is not available to the public or subject to third-party scrutiny, officers don’t end up downloading any videos in their investigations of serious violent crimes, with records showing no downloads from the POD cameras in nearly half of homicide investigations, approximately 75% of open shooting investigations and more than 90% of open robberies last year. While the cameras also allow law enforcement access to a live feed in order to monitor an area and thus officers can help prevent crime without having to download anything, staffing realities make such constant monitoring difficult if not impossible and the CPD has not yet identified software that can accurately assist in automatic monitoring at this time. While the cameras have led some studies to show a marked decrease in crime in the immediate area after a camera is installed, other studies have shown some particular areas don’t see a decrease in crime at all. “We oftentimes get these far-reaching promises of what it is that these glorious systems will do,” said Ed Yohnka, director of communications and public policy for the ACLU of Illinois. “They are implemented … and then afterward there’s no real analysis as to whether or not it fulfilled any function that was part of the promise in the first instance.”

Lack of Trust Remains Despite CPD’s Uniform Body-Worn Camera Policy in Effort to Improve Transparency

In response to outrage over perceived police misconduct and the shooting deaths of civilians, the CPD, along with many other law enforcement agencies around the state and country, agreed to implement a policy that slowly introduced body-worn cameras across the department to all officers, with each patrol officer being issued one by the end of 2017. However, what was meant to increase transparency and build community trust has not been the smooth transition that some sought in seeking its implementation. “We will continue [to] make investments that make our officers safer and build community trust,” then-Superintendent Eddie Johnson was quoted as saying in a news release announcing the department’s plan to expand body cameras to more officers following a pilot program in 2015. But there was some pushback from the CPD union, and officers failed to properly activate their cameras and save footage in several documented instances, although exact figures are unknown because CPD does not track complaints related to body camera issues. Some officers came under fire in summer of 2020 when there were reports that some officers were covering up their body-worn cameras in the wake of the protests against police brutality in wake of George Floyd’s death, with then-Mayor Lightfoot warning that, “If you are one of those officers, we will find you, we will identify you, and we will strip you of your police powers.” The effectiveness of body-worn cameras in lowering rates of police misconduct is also not clear, as different studies across the United States have reached opposite conclusions, with some showing it decreased instances of police misconduct and increased police effectiveness and others finding that there was no impact. In either case, the cameras give both defendants and prosecutors a new tool to verify what happened in most instances that led to a police interaction, provided that the officer followed protocol, and have even been used in multiple civil suits to support claims of police misconduct. Although information is saved by the CPD as a matter of policy, such retention is not permanent and anyone seeking to obtain any footage should consider consulting with an experienced attorney who can assist them in acquiring said footage to the extent it exists.

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