As officer-involved shootings make headlines nationwide, the Hawaii Police Department said it’s continuing plans to issue body cameras to officers.
It has completed a pilot program and is now researching its best option.
The move would bring them into alignment with a rising number of police departments and President Barack Obama, who called for $75 million to be spent on cameras for officers across the nation.
Recent surveys by police organizations show that about 25 percent of all departments are using cameras, with 80 percent evaluating their use.
The cameras are already being sporadically used in Hawaii.
Some Honolulu Police officers have purchased private models in an attempt to protect themselves, the Associated Press reported.
“The current lack of uniform guidance for body cameras on both a local and state level leaves the use of cameras and retention of footage to the discretion of individual officers; it also raises questions as to whether these videos are ‘government records’ under Hawaii’s open records law,” Mandy Findlay, advocacy coordinator of the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii, wrote in an email.
“Hawaii should have a statewide policy that protects privacy interests while also helping to capture evidence of misconduct, deter bad behavior, and spur police practice and criminal justice reforms,” she wrote.
But that policy does not exist, leaving the agencies on their own.
Hawaii Police are looking at chest-mounted units, which generally place the lens about a quarter of the way down the chest.
It’s common for the camera to include a light that turns on during recording to alert people involved that a camera is in use.
Many officers, including Maj. Samuel Thomas, said knowing a camera is in use can help keep people calm during their interactions with police.
One major concern is when to record.
The two main options considered are full-time recording and officer control.
Full-time recording would get every interaction the officer has with the public. It would also film bathroom visits, conversation with coworkers and provide a chance for backlash against whistleblowers, the ACLU wrote.
That led the group to opt for an officer-toggled system. This is not a perfect option, they say, and can lead to abuse, such as officers turning it off before intentional instances of misconduct.
It’s also possible to forget to begin recording in high-pressure times, officers said.
As a result, the ACLU supports the use of a strong and clear policy for what can and cannot be recorded.
Where to film is also an issue. Filming a domestic violence situation inside a home can be critical, due to its explosive nature. It can also be an invasion of privacy, as someone’s home can be opened to the public by the recordings.
“Some of the problems attendant to a camera program have to do with the need for storage/retrieval/redaction of the video,” Thomas wrote.
“There have reportedly been jurisdictions where people have opined that all video is public record and thus anyone could come and request any and all video. The problem is that you would need to create a new section of employees to retrieve and redact the video to ensure no one’s privacy interests are compromised and to meet statutory timeline requirements for producing such requested material.”
That concern also influences public advocates as well.
“Police body cameras, if used properly, can be a valuable tool to promote transparency in police conduct. The ACLU of Hawaii supports policies that implement safeguards to ensure that body cameras are not being used for inappropriate purposes (such as scanning the homes of innocent people for signs of unlawful conduct, or identifying anonymous crime reporters or victims),” Findlay wrote.
Body cameras are currently in use by the Rialto, California, Police Department, whose initial experiment showed “use-of-force by officers wearing cameras fell by 59 percent and complaints against officers dropped by 87 percent compared to the previous year’s totals,” according to a release from the department.
They now issue cameras to all officers.
The Hawaii Police Department receives a number of complaints about officers and officer conduct throughout the year.
Those are routed through the Police Commission, which reviews the complaint before passing it along to officers.
Often the complaint ends there, due to a lack of information.
The commission can then forward the complaint to the department.
The Hawaii Police Department is required to file a report about discipline every year with the Legislature. It only includes when discipline is taken and includes external and internal events. For the last three years, the most common item has been “failure to comply with report writing procedures.”
In 2014, there were 35 incidents. One officer may have multiple incidents associated with them, meaning there were less than 35 officers disciplined.
One officer was discharged for “having inappropriate contact with a minor” and an off-duty officer was discharged for slamming an in-custody suspect against a vehicle and the plexiglass partition of the police car.
There were also 35 incidents in 2013.
One officer was terminated for using the position for personal gain.
Another discipline was an officer being rude to a member of the public, along with another event about bringing disrepute to the department, both of which led to suspensions.
In 2012, there were 25 actions taken.
That included failure to take appropriate action, falsifying police reports and committing a criminal act.
In the state, Kauai currently has body cameras, according to The Garden Isle newspaper.
However, disagreements between the police union and the administration on their use has prevented their introduction, the paper reported.
A call left with the police union Friday was not returned.
The ethical questions are predicated on the idea that the Hawaii Police Department can afford it.
The initial projected cost of the system is $612,000, Thomas wrote. He said they’ll seek funding from governmental sources and grants, “when we get to the point of being able to run the program in a manner that will befit the department and the community it serves.”
That includes the purchase of enough cameras for the 432 officers currently in the department.
Holding on to the data is another expense. Most cameras are in high definition for clarity use in court, which uses up data rapidly. The files may also need to be held for years for ongoing cases or investigations.
The department has not determined if it will use a storage system that is onsite or a cloud system, said Thomas.
Providers of police camera services, such as Wolfcom, explain that the data is encrypted to at least the level set by the federal government for their agencies.
“Our main concern is that, however footage is stored, there are safeguards in place to prevent individual officers from prematurely deleting or tampering with footage at their own discretion. Police officers must have clear and consistent policies regarding data retention; to protect the privacy of the general public, police departments must also have clear and consistent policies regarding what videos can (or must) be made public,” Finlay said.
