Asymmetrical Information

Add in the cost of transferring all those taped confessions, under strict chain of custody, to a new medium when no one has a tape player any more.

Still, it should be done. The cost should not be weighed against only the cost of lawsuits, but against the cost of lawsuits PLUS the cost, over and above any lawsuit recoveries, of wrongful convictions that this would prevent.

That makes the economics a no-brainer.

First, don't we already tape a lot of this stuff on audio tape? Where does all that get stored (presumably in climate-controlled rooms)?

Second, why bother with tapes? Go digital. Sure, the camera may be slightly more expensive, but then you can store on hard drives or something, with backups on CD/DVD. Much more stable medium. Still you'll need an indexing system, storage space, etc, but really, what's one CD versus the stack of paperwork you have to do for each case?

I hope no one minds if I weigh in on this one.

Ms. McArdle has a good point about the cost of storing the tapes. Few people seem to realize (or care) that the police are operating on a budget, and they never ever have enough money to do what is necessary. This seems to be a long-term and slowly balooning expense that we could just as well do without.

Mr. Yomtov makes the point that the video would save money through preventing lawsuits. Keep in mind that the cost of lawsuits most definately does not come out of the police budget, while the cost of the system and storage of the atpes would. Not only is there zero economic incentive for the department to do this it still would be a drain.

The point about wrongful convictions is thoughtful and well taken. However, I think that you'll find that most wrongful convictions are caused when a witness fingers the wrong guy. We have watchdog agencies that do a very good job of keeping the cops honest, even if it's an imperfect world and someone falls through the cracks every blue moon or so.

James

$25k per room? Are they trying to produce a reality TV series or something? $25k is ridiculously high. There isn't a conveinence store in the land that doesn't have a security system with archival capabilities so why should it cost a 50X more to install a slight variant capable of taping confessions?

Sure, ten year archival in a conditioned room is a noble cause, but how hard is it to by a couple of $1,000 DV cameras and ship the tapes off to Iron Mountain (or a similar vendor)?

"... how hard is it to by a couple of $1,000 DV cameras and ship the tapes off to Iron Mountain (or a similar vendor)?"

Please keep in mind that the rules that the police operate by aren't the rules you do. Rules of evidence would keep them from sending off the tapes to any outside vendor. That would violate the "chain of evidence" rules and they'd be ruled inadmissable.

James

Technically, it would be pretty do-able right now. I have a $300 attachment for my PC that can capture video to save on a CD. It can also output to a video tape, and it doesn't need any fancy digital video camera. I would expect you could find a Mac somewhere that could do something similar. And DVD writers are already below $400. This may seem expensive, but compared to a hermetically sealed vault for VCR tapes...

A lot of police departments are already storing records digitally. That would be the way to store the video as well, it takes up a lot less space, digital media is massively cheaper (by volume) than video tape, and it does not require climate control.

Why not just give a copy to the defendants lawyer and the defendant? If done quickly that should keep any cheating to a minimum.

The trouble with digital media for this purpose is that it's too easy to manipulate. So while it makes sense it also means you need even stricter controls than with analog. Odd, but true.

As far as handing a copy to the defendant and his lawyer, remember they have an incentive to cheat also, so the police better have a solid copy themselves.

Let's try our damnedest to avoid wrongful convictions, but let's not forget that most of these guys really are guilty.

James,

I hardly think using an outside vendor would violate chain of evidence -- simply add the necessary protections needed into the terms and conditions.

Nevertheless, as long as we're talking cost no object, I'd be happier with a NYPD policy that no interrogations occur without attorney representation.

It's not without precedent, in response to the Miranda ruling, many PD's long ago implemented strict policies -- some PD's actually instruct police NOT to mirandize suspects in custody until the defense attorney is present in order to completely rule out any possibility that a tortured confession will occur.

I don't think the cost necessarily has to be that high. And I can think of several ways to make it more workable and less costly. They can use high res. web cams and stream the video to a central server (or more than one central server actually, if need be). You could centralize monitoring and verification that way (for example, have some (rotating) volunteer accused person's rights advocate (or some such) keeping watch along with the police personnel to make sure everything's kopacetic). On a regular basis (probably several times a day) you'd burn off VCDs (or SVCDs if you needed higher quality) of the interogation video which contained their own documentation of what they were (who, what, when, where, etc.) but would primarily be indexed by some sort of code to records in a database. Send one copy to the archives, one copy to the fancy offsite storage, and one copy (or a few copies) to the suspect or his council or family (perhaps after the trial has completed). I'd say the police should be required to keep their copies maybe 3 or 5 years, 10 years seems a bit much, if the suspect or his council thinks it could be useful then they will be plenty motivated to find ways to keep their copies in good condition for as long as possible. To ensure the validity of the evidence they could keep a checksum of the data or digitally sign each disc with a private key. How much does a small safe deposit box cost, ten, twenty bucks a year? I think your average suspect and/or lawfirm and/or suspect's family can cough up that amount of money if they felt the suspect was innocent.

"I hardly think using an outside vendor would violate chain of evidence -- simply add the necessary protections needed into the terms and conditions."

The vast majority of police procedure is unnecessary so far as solving the crime is concerned. Instead it's to close off the avenues that the defense attorney might use to screw around with the trial.

The problem I have is this a priori assumption that this is necessary, or that it will be a net benefit to the budget. How many convictions per year are overturned because allegations of police impropriety are proven? (The defense almost always say that the cops screwed up somehow, but how many times does it actually work? Almost never.) How much money will be saved? I see objections to the estimates of setting the videotape system up, but nothing at all about how much money illegally obtained confessions cost the system. Someone want to look up some hard figures before we all decide that this is a good thing?

I realize that there are always options. There are always different ways to do things that might (or might not) be less costly. It might just be less costly to send the tapes to an outside vendor for long term storage, mainly because the police would have to treat the tapes as evidence and an effort would have to be made to keep the "chain of evidence" intact (see above where I talk about the defense screwing around). Does anyone seriously think that the same savings would be reaped if the outside vendor would have to excercise the same care? And the safeguards that would have to be taken during shipping the tapes around?

I dunno, guys. This whole thing just sounds like a big headline grab to me. I need to see the biiiggg problem with overturned convictions and lawsuits sucking the city's budget dry because of all of the times that the cops beat the crap out of a suspect before I'd think this was a problem that needed to be solved.

James

I don't know about you James but I thought the whole purpose was not to keep the city budget from busting at the seams due to lawsuits but to increase the transparency of police procedures and aid, ya know, what's that thingy?, the whozawazit, oh yeah, justice.

Maybe I'm lean too far toward ideal-politick for the gritty real world, but I happen to think improving justice is worth a few bits of shiny coins now and again.

I don't know about you James but I thought the whole purpose was not to keep the city budget from busting at the seams due to lawsuits but to increase the transparency of police procedures and aid, ya know, what's that thingy?, the whozawazit, oh yeah, justice.

Maybe I'm lean too far toward ideal-politick for the gritty real world, but I happen to think improving justice is worth a few bits of shiny coins now and again.

"Maybe I'm lean too far toward ideal-politick for the gritty real world, but I happen to think improving justice is worth a few bits of shiny coins now and again."

There's never enough money for everything that needs to be done. There's always something that falls by the side when the budget is drawn up. For example, the costs of DNA tests have fallen in recent years but they're still too expensive to be used in every single case where they'd do some good. Justice might not be served by picking and choosing, but there's not anything anyone can do about it. This is the reality of the situation.

So the question we have to ask is: does the proposal to video tape every interrogation address a real problem? Keep the moral indignation on the back burner for a few minutes and please think about it. How many times do you hear about a confession that was obtained illegally by your PD? Every day? Every week? Maybe it happens so seldom that it warrants big headlines?

I don't think this is a good way to use already tight resources. In my opinion most police don't have adequate weapons training. Wouldn't it serve justice to give it to them? But that would mean an increase in the budget and more taxes.

Howsabout DNA tests for every sexual assault where appropriate? That way the faulty memories of a person who was subjected to a horrific, life destroying event wouldn't be relied on and we'd be sure that the right perp ended up in jail. Good idea, right? It would serve justice? But that would mean a significant increase in the budget, and even more taxes.

I think this video tape idea is a feel-good measure to fix a problem that doesn't exist. I know for a fact that implementing such a plan would be more difficult than someone who's never worked in law enforcement would expect. I'm not convinced that it would save any money, or even have any net benefit at all.

James

P.S. As an aside to Robin, we all want to make sure that those entrusted with our safety don't cross the line, and I agree completely with your sentiments. But I think you should be careful when talking about justice to someone who's personally responsible for sending at least 3,000 guilty people to jail.

Use a digital video camera, burn it to 2 DVDs, make and record a checksum, give one to the defense lawyer and keep two (or N) more in archival storage. Much smaller, very cheap, "guaranteed" non-tampering.

If you need to store them offsite, stick a bunch of them (carefully indexed) into a large, locked, tamper-evident box.

Sounds like a business opportunity to me.

JB's got the right idea. It shouldn't cost more than two grand to set up a more-than-adequate recording capability. Definitely burn two copies or more on DVD.

As far as archival storage goes, just deputize a couple of people from the local library. They know how to archive materials and more than likely already have the space. Deputized, they can fit right into the chain of evidence.

And seeing that libraries are always getting their budgets cut, a little extra money coming from the PD should be welcomed.

How are you going to make sure the DVD you gave them wasn't copied and altered? Anything you could stamp on the DVD itself would be liable to coppying without extremely expensive proprietary technology that would again up the cost. How are you going to make sure someone didn't alter the stream before it hit the DVD? No offense, but y'all have no idea what police departments have to do to maintain chain of evidence, and it's a lot more burdensome than you're assuming. From what little I know, anything that does not first render a hard copy that can be sealed and locked under supervision, and only afterwards transferred to a server or what have you, is not going to meet the standard. Plus, with a strong city police union like Chicago's, there is absolutely no chance that it's going to be outsourced, so the question is irrelevent.

I also agree with James's point that with finite resources, this may not the best use of a city's police dollars, at least at this time. I am curious, though, about the evidentiary (if that's a word) status of the video from the car-mounted cameras that you see a lot of police departments using nowadays.

Jane,

You're absolutely right -- I don't know what goes into maintaining the chain of evidence. My only point in attacking the cost is that it seems that governments typically are stymied not by the requirements/standards of law enforcement, but by their own ignorance of the state of technology.

This apparent institutionalized fear of technology results in efforts to solve problems that don't exist and to overengineer solutions when there is no need. The end result is that we often end up with costly systems that replicate human processes that weren't secure/optimal to begin with.

Nevertheless, the point being discussed here is whether or not tapings should occur, and I agree with that. So I'll concede whatever arguments I have made with respect to the cost of such a system.

"I am curious, though, about the evidentiary (if that's a word) status of the video from the car-mounted cameras that you see a lot of police departments using nowadays."

This is a very, very good and insightful question. If something terrible happens at a traffic stop then the entire area is considered a crime scene. Everything found there is subject to the rigid procedure to ensure that the chain of evidence isn't broken. Any tapes found in the cruiser are popped in thos little evidence bags, forms are filled out in triplicate, and the tape isn't viewed except under controlled conditions back at HQ (unless there's a compelling need to run the tape immediately, such as when an officer is shot/wounded and they need to find the perps ASAP).

When it comes to simple traffic violations the criteria for evidence isn't as rigid, so a tape can be entered in as evidence without all the rigamarole.

This pretty much illustrates what Jane stated above, that you guys have NO IDEA what the police have to go through to meet the criteria required for evidence to be admitted (and all this while trying to conduct an investigation, which is hardly the easiest thing in the world even without all of the rules put in the way). It isn't your fault, because the TV shows don't bother to show the boring nuts and bolts of police work.

James

You could use video technology (DVR) to make this happen, but it will be more expensive than the kind of cheapo card add-on that you get a Best Buy.

The issues are:

-- Clarity and quality (better camera)

-- Tampering resistance (digital watermark, recording application with audit trail)

-- Archiving (high speed network/robust backup capability)

-- The biggest of all - business process changes

If I were asked to make this happen I'd run a pilot program in a precinct that has had many lawsuits or some perception problem regarding police brutality. This would make it much easier to justify.

Once the system (technology and the processes around it) proved itself it could then be rolled out to other precincts.

James,

Is DNA testing really that prohibitive? My understanding is that tests run $500-$1000, at least where evidence is fresh. That doesn't seem like a huge expense. And wouldn't a policy of always testing DNA save some investigative costs by easily ruling out some suspects, and maybe even finding a match with a felon whose DNA was already in a database?

Jane, the tamper issue has been addressed. All you need to do is make a checksum of the digital data and have the police keep that checksum on record. If the suspect's attorney produces a disc that doesn't match the checksum then you know it has been tampered. Additionally, using public / private key cryptography you could digitally sign the data (which can only be done with the private key) and either keep the signature on the disc or in police storage. This is not a technologically challenging problem, we can, if we so wish, virtually guarantee the evidence has not been tampered with, even if it was not in the custody of the police. As for verifying the video stream wasn't tampered with before it was burned to disc, that's a tougher problem, but not without reasonable solutions. As I mentioned you could have volunteer non-police officers who monitored the video recordings from the "control room" and otherwise verified that the video was legit.

In general you cannot absolutely guarantee that there is no way for the police to interrogate a prisoner outside of the video cameras. But then again, such interrogations would likely leave other evidence (such as long time gaps where the suspect was not accounted for).

James, I agree that feasibility has to be taken into account and that "perfect justice" is not possible. But in this case it seems to me that it's worth the price. Additionally, no matter how many people anyone sends to jail and no matter how much good someone has done in aid of society and societal justice that gives them precisely zero right to abuse their powers. Considering that we absolutely know that false confessions and abuse of police power do occur I think there's little defense on matters of principle with regards to increasing the transparency of police procedures, especially suspect interrogations.

"Is DNA testing really that prohibitive? My understanding is that tests run $500-$1000, at least where evidence is fresh. That doesn't seem like a huge expense."

This is a pretty good question. Let's take a look at some numbers.

The state of New York is ranked 48th in the nation for the number of forcible rapes per capita, which makes it one of the safest places to live if you're trying to avoid sexual assault. But they still had over 3,500 rapes in the year 2000. You can find the state-by-state crime statistics here.

So how much do we need to spend just for New York? $700,000 USD? Where's this money going to come from, anyway? Everybody just seems to think that they'll shove a few new requirements for evidence gathering on the police and they'll just pay for it out of the budget. Let's not forget that police departments are a public service; not only don't they have an income they're not SUPPOSED to have a way to make money. Yet money is so tight that some departments are allowing businesses to advertise on their cruisers!

If you want new services, if you want the police to have up-to-date tools, AND if you want them to be well trained then someone's going to have to cough up the bucks. let's talk about that first.

James

"James, I agree that feasibility has to be taken into account and that "perfect justice" is not possible. But in this case it seems to me that it's worth the price."

I don't have a problem with that. But I do have a problem with someone (like the Chicago alderman who's proposal inspired Megan's post) suggesting that a greater burden be placed on the police without also discussing ways to pay for it. So far everyone who's left a comment in favor has said "It's worth it" or "It's not going to cost all that much". This isn't practical or realistic.

"Considering that we absolutely know that false confessions and abuse of police power do occur I think there's little defense on matters of principle with regards to increasing the transparency of police procedures, especially suspect interrogations."

This was just what I was talking about above. Principal doesn't mean squat unless you have the means.

There are safeguards in place to prevent the police from abusing their power, and we also have ways to punish those who do so anyway. They work pretty well, which is why I don't think there's a problem that needs to be addressed.

And there's absolutely zero chance of stopping illegal interrogations entirely. Think about Megan's statement that illegal interrogations will simply be held out of the camera's view.

Unfortunately you seem to think that it can be stopped. A few cameras, a bunch of money spent and the problem which isn't except once in a blue moon goes away. Forever. And no one who's inclined to abuse their authority ever will.

This is a fantasy.

Keep in mind that I agree with you in principal. I'm a big advocate of increasing accountability, but only if it doesn't mean that we have to reduce the effectiveness of law enforcement. So far I don't see the benefit and I see a fairly big cost.

James

Digital recording is already standard in 911 call centers. THey've long used DAT and in recent years DVD-RAM has become common. I installed a few of these leading up to Y2K when the upgrade cash was bountiful. The use of such is known to the cops if they can get the funding.

As for the DNA testing of rape victims thing, even going by $1,000 per test and using the peak rape numbers from the 80s (about 6,000 rapes for 17.5 million people) that works out to, on average, 34 cents per person per year, or maybe a dollar per household. I think you can find a way to get people to pay for that or shove it in the budget somewhere.

As for the "perfection is impossible" argument, that works for everything. Merely because perfection is impossible does not mean that we should not try as hard as possible to improve things. Personally I think the Police in this country are fairly decent, but they could be better. And I think I'm not alone when I say that one of the places which needs improvement is the interrogation room. Sure, police can "interrogate" a suspect outside of surveillance, but then they have a rather difficult time of explaining just how so much "progress" in obtaining information or a confession was made outside of the interrogation room. That's the sort of thing which attorneys, and juries, will jump all over.

If you ask me the reason most police have trouble getting as much funding as they might need is because of the war on drugs, which is very unpopular with many people and which costs quite a lot of money and takes up a lot of the time and resources of the police. You'll have a hard time convincing me, and a lot of people, that the police are in any way short on law enforcement resources when they are still arresting pot smokers. Where are the priorities?

"You'll have a hard time convincing me, and a lot of people, that the police are in any way short on law enforcement resources when they are still arresting pot smokers. Where are the priorities?"

The police are public servants, NOT policy makers.

If you're complaining about the war on drugs then you should try and elect the people who will work on changing the laws that are already on the books. Suggesting that the police ignore the law, or refuse to enforce it, is not a reasonable or realistic position.

So far as DNA tests, work on increasing the budget and you'll be able to get it in place without a problem. "Shove it in the budget somewhere"? That's the rational behind all of these proposals. Pass the new laws and the police will find the funding somewhere, somehow. Ignore the fact that something important has to be left undone every year because it just can't be shoved in the budget somewhere. Like I've said before I keep hearing people say "It's not that expensive", but I'm not hearing anyone say "Where is the money for this going to come from?"

I've yet to see any hard numbers proving that illegal interrogations are a problem. So far the main arguement in favor is "SURE there's a problem" even though it's completely unsubstantiated.

James

Robin, where'd you get a number of 17.5m taxpayers in Chicago? As far as I know, the number is more like a couple million; most of the Chicago metro area is outside of the city limits. New York only has 8m residents, and less than half that number of taxpayers, and the city proper is much bigger than Chicago. Assuming most of those rapes happen in the metro area, I'm getting more like $4.00 per taxpayer, which doesn't sound like much until you confront several thousand other programs that claim to do as much good for only $4.00 per.

Chicago? Maybe I wasn't clear, I was talking about rape cases in New York state (via James' link). I picked the year with the most rapes and added some margin (6k per 17.5 mil. rather than the current 3.5k per 18 mil.) just to make a conservative estimate, and then guessed maybe 3 people in the state per household / taxpayer (giving 34 cents per person and maybe a dollar per taxpayer). According to this state and local taxes in NY are approx. $4500 per capita, so paying for DNA tests in as many rape cases as possible (even in a year with a high number of rapes) would add maybe 0.007% to the current tax burden. Now, I'm sure there are many other programs out there which claim to do a lot of good for the same amount of funding, but a 0.007% increased tax burden to help catch and convict more rapists seems like a slam dunk argument to me.

(Using more liberal / more current estimates gives 10 cents per person as the cost and a 0.002% increase in tax burden.)

I think the biggest hesitation that the police have is to the jury seeing the interrogations. Some for good reasons, others to cover their butts.

Lets presume that the police don't intend to break the law, or do anything wrong, at least for the sake of argument. They're interrogating someone hard, who they know is guilty. Again, for sake of argument, we'll presume they've got enough evidence to convince them, even though it might not be surely enough for a court conviction, or maybe they're trying to get the suspect to roll on someone else.

Again, presume the cops are innocent here, just for the sake of argument.

And when Johnny Cochran shows the jury the interrogation, and claims that his client never did this thing, and was browbeaten into it (and to quote Dana Carvey "Nevermind that mountain of evidence! look over here! Here!")....

Assuming that, I can see where police departments would be wary of taping every interview/interogation. Furthermore, failures in the system then take on a very glaring _apparent_ conspiracy. Tape is screwed up? Machine broke? we didn't get sound? It would immediately be a defense tactic to examine every police statement with utmost scruitany. This has the benefit of exposing things that are commonplace to the jury's eyes, but with many other things, the jury in some cases previously has been intentionally left ignorant, due to points of law.

I can think of quite a few scenarios that would play out there.... with the police obeying the law, where a tape would hurt them.

Having said that... I think it would be better to tackle those head on, establishing legal uses of the tape, requirements for storage, just as we do now with other evidence.... The assumptions I'm making... well, I'm not sure in real life how good those are.

Addison

James brought my attention to this discussion to comment.

I was actually asked to design a system like this. My long-winded commentary can be found on my blog at jackburton.blogspot.com if you are interested at all. If not, please excuse my interruption and continue with your regularly scheduled broadcast.

"You'll have a hard time convincing me, and a lot of people, that the police are in any way short on law enforcement resources when they are still arresting pot smokers. Where are the priorities?"

The police are public servants, NOT policy makers . . . Suggesting that the police ignore the law, or refuse to enforce it, is not a reasonable or realistic position.

Nonsense -- police make this decision thousands of times a year. They don't pull over everyone driving in excess of posted speed limits, and they don't ticket everyone they pull over. They don't stop jaywalkers. (At least not anyplace I've ever lived.) They don't drive around looking for people violating obscure municipal codes. Who to investigate, who to arrest, and who to prosecute is always at the discretion of the police and the attorneys.

"Nonsense -- police make this decision thousands of times a year. They don't pull over everyone driving in excess of posted speed limits, and they don't ticket everyone they pull over. They don't stop jaywalkers. (At least not anyplace I've ever lived.) They don't drive around looking for people violating obscure municipal codes."

Last time I checked, there's a big difference between minor misdemeanors and felonies.

James

re: what is cost to innocent defendant of not testing DNA
time in jail, defense costs, wages lost before trial
Police wasting time investigating the wrong people
Somebodies figure of 700,000 per year in New York. How much does it cost to warehouse one innocent person for a multiyear sentence?

Nonsense -- police make this decision thousands of times a year. They don't pull over everyone driving in excess of posted speed limits, and they don't ticket everyone they pull over. They don't stop jaywalkers. (At least not anyplace I've ever lived.) They don't drive around looking for people violating obscure municipal codes. Who to investigate, who to arrest, and who to prosecute is always at the discretion of the police and the attorneys.

If only....

That's a nice sweeping (but not true) generalization. Domestic Violence laws are now written in a way that the Police Officer has no discretion in those matters, even if it's pretty obvious that the 'victim' is making up the accusation.

When it comes to marijuana, the attitude of the person and the circumstances under which the Police Officer came into contact with the person has a lot to do with whether or not charges are filed. Also, a very small amount of marijuana is a Minor Misdemeanor is most places (or the equivalent of), which is not punishable by any jail time, just a fine.

Besides, if you think we've all these people locked up for having a joint on them, you've been reading too much into statistics. Usually the jailhouse whiners have other charges that have landed them where they are, not just marijuana.

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