Ahistorical and Wrong–on Police Body Cameras and Other Things

 

Are police body cameras designed to scrutinize police work? Photo via Utility, Inc.

By Matt Stroud, Criminal justice researcher, ACLU of Pennsylvania

I thought I’d misheard him.

At a Duquesne University conference on a Friday afternoon in late January, John Rago — an associate law professor at Duquesne who’s sometimes associated with proposed wrongful conviction legislative reforms — was giving a presentation about police body-worn cameras to a group of about 100 people. Much of his presentation was predictable: he showed three videos, for example, on a big screen in a university ballroom that depicted officers acting both appropriately and in the wrong. The message? Policing is complicated; both good and bad apples exist. Fair enough.

But he also said something that was shocking to me — something that made me wonder if I’d misunderstood him, or he’d misspoken.

“Why does the public want body cameras?” he asked, about 11 minutes into his talk. “Let me start by saying, as a policy, they are not designed necessarily to monitor police conduct.”

Body cameras. Police body cameras. The devices that caused Taser International’s bodycam sales figures to multiply in the wake of Michael Brown being killed by officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri. Those body cameras are not designed to monitor police conduct. That’s what he said.

“They are designed to protect the integrity of the criminal justice process,” Rago went on. And to “give us more effective evidence.”

This conference where Rago was speaking was part of Duquesne’s “Forensic Fridays” program at the Cyril H. Wecht Institute of Forensic Science and Law. This particular session was titled, “Balancing Safety, Justice and Privacy: Body-Worn Cameras, Forensic Evidence and the Right to Know.” Rago was there ostensibly as a moderating presence — an academic voice. The others who gave presentations after Rago included three legislators — State Rep. Dom Costa, State Sen. Randy Vulakovich, and former State Rep. David J. Mayernik — who all ascended to their political perches from positions in law enforcement. A Pittsburgh police commander also spoke.

It wasn’t surprising that men with law enforcement backgrounds agreed with Rago, advocating against body cameras as police monitoring devices. But to have someone from a university make the same argument? That was new. It marked a shift in the discussion about whether body camera footage should be public or not. And in no other state in the country is that discussion more important right now than in Pennsylvania.

Continue reading about the plot to keep body cam footage secret at ACLU-PA’s Medium site.

On to the links.

RETORT

(Criminal justice agencies speak; we reply.)

From U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement: “248 arrested in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Delaware, during ICE operation targeting criminal aliens, illegal re-entrants and other immigration violators.”

Claims: “ICE does not conduct sweeps, checkpoints or raids that target aliens indiscriminately…. This operation targeted public safety threats, such as convicted criminal aliens and gang members, and individuals who have violated our nation’s immigration laws, including those who re-entered the country after being deported and immigration fugitives ordered deported by federal immigration judges…. Reports of ICE checkpoints and sweeps are false, dangerous and irresponsible,” and, “During targeted enforcement operations ICE officers frequently encounter additional suspects who may be in the United States in violation of federal immigration laws. Those persons will be evaluated on a case by case basis and, when appropriate, arrested by ICE.”

Retort by ACLU-PA Legal Director Vic Walczak: “This is pure unadulterated bullshit. Among the tactics we have observed, ICE circulates a flier purportedly showing someone who is wanted, but no one knows the person. ICE agents then ask everyone who looks and sounds foreign in the area for papers and detains anyone who doesn’t have them. We have several reports of ICE agents stopping vans full of Latino-looking workers and detaining many of them. Most, and possibly all, of these people have no or long-ago minor convictions.  We also have credible reports of a checkpoint southwest of Harrisburg, and are looking to speak with people actually impacted. We are also working to confirm ICE agents hanging around outside a church and community center.  Plainly, ICE is interpreting “when appropriate” to detain someone to mean every time they can determine that the person has looked cross eyed at them. And when they say that six folks were referred for criminal prosecution, at least some of them are for illegally using ID, including at least one in Pittsburgh. It’s not for gun running or drugs, but document crimes. And even with ICE’s reported numbers, they admit that 80 of the detained people have no criminal charges. And it’s a good bet, based on anecdotes we’ve heard, that many of the other 120 have only committed minor crimes, and often long ago. The president’s and Secretary Kelly’s claim that they are only going after the “bad hombres” is a lie. They are systematically destroying the lives of countless hard-working families, and it’s not just the people taken into detention, but the families left behind, including many children who are U.S. citizens. I want to vomit.”

EXCERPTS

(Criminal justice news that could use a second look.)

 

State Rep. Todd Stephens (R-Montgomery). Photo via The Inquirer.

From The Inquirer: “Mandatory minimums don’t reduce recidivism. So why is Pa. weighing bringing them back?”

“But he’s staring down a broad and unlikely coalition of opponents, including the conservative Commonwealth Foundation, the Pennsylvania ACLU, and the state Department of Corrections. The department links the decline in the state prison population in the last few years partly to the end of mandatory minimum sentences. It estimates that restoring them could cost $19 million in the first year and as much as $85.5 million annually down the road. The proposal is shaping up as a face-off between proponents of the tough-on-crime thinking that birthed harsh mandatory minimums during the 1980s war on drugs, and a prison-reform movement intent on reversing trends that have swollen the state inmate population from about 7,000 in 1980 to more than 49,000 today.”

From The Post-Gazette: “Mark A. Nordenberg and Frederick W. Thieman: Judging judges fairly; setting bail is a critical part of our criminal justice system”

“Such questions should regularly be asked about a system that touches lives in such fundamental ways, particularly when a life has been lost, whether that is because a person was incarcerated or was not incarcerated. But context is critical, and so is the recognition that judicial decision-making is necessarily part art and part science. It relies on the discretion of committed and experienced jurists with good instincts but also demands the deployment of the best tools that recent advances in research and technology can develop. Those who make these decisions on a regular basis in what might be hundreds or even thousands of cases should be accountable to the public and judged by fair standards. They should not, however, be singled out in a single case where they were properly deploying best practices that, in an imperfect world, cannot be made perfect.”

From PennLive: “ICE agents are racial profiling, persecuting families needlessly, say immigration advocates”

“(President) Trump is targeting undocumented families at a time when all working people of our state, immigrant and nonimmigrant alike, struggle for better paying jobs, against rising costs of basic necessities and for safer communities,” she said. ‘Immigrant communities from across Pennsylvania are standing up against it because no one is safe when working families are used as pawns in cruel political games.'”

HEADLINES

(Criminal justice news to be aware of.)

 

The Allegheny County Jail. Photo via The Post-Gazette.

Pennsylvania

• From The Post-Gazette: “Members debate how much oversight Jail Oversight Board should have”
• From ACLU of Pennsylvania: “How Police Can Use Body Cameras Without Creating Another Tool of Surveillance”
• From City&State: “House GOP revives raft of controversial ‘law and order’ bills”
• From The New York Times: “In Chicago and Philadelphia, the Difference a Park Makes”
• From PennRecord: “District judge rules that data stored outside of U.S. subject to warrants”
• From The Inquirer: “Philly police wrestling with body camera issues”
• From PublicSource: “Pittsburgh wants to cut down on overtime. Not having enough staff makes it tough.”
• Also from PublicSource: “Voices Unlocked: Jason gave him a chance. Sa’Von took it. Street crime cut their friendship short.”
• From The Inquirer: “Philly DA will seek life without parole for some juveniles, after all”
• From The Philadelphia Tribune: “Lawmakers disagree with life sentences for juveniles”
• From BillyPenn (via Vice): “Eagle Malcolm Jenkins, who protested during the National Anthem, did a ride along with Philly cops”
• From PennLive: “Listen up, lawmakers. Mandatory minimum sentences won’t stop crime”
• From CBS Philly: “Bensalem Police First Department In Country To Have Almost-Instant DNA System”

Pa. District Attorneys

• From CBS Philly: “Another Name Added To Crowded Race For Philly D.A.”
• More on Jack O’Neill from Philadelphia Magazine: “The D.A. Candidate Who Threw His Hat in the Ring at the Last Possible Second”
• Also from Philadelphia Magazine: “Meet the D.A. Candidate Who Led Philly’s Civil Asset Forfeiture System: Beth Grossman, a prosecutor for decades and the only Republican running, says it allowed her to seize drug dealers’ homes.”
• One more from Philly Mag: “Philadelphia’s Police Union Endorses Rich Negrin for District Attorney”
• From The Daily News: “Candidates for DA in Philly agree on policy, but still clash in person”

National

• From The Star-Telegram: “Advocates hope to end policy in Texas of jailing poor for unpaid fines”
• From The Intercept: “Missouri’s underfunded public defender office forces the poor to languish in jail”
• From The Marshall Project: “Was Evan Miller ‘The Rare Juvenile’ Who Deserved Life Without Parole? Now 28, he’ll be re-sentenced, unless the court finds him ‘irreparably corrupt.’”
• Also from The Marshall Project: “Crime Hotspots Need Investments, Not Just Policing: Anti-crime strategies should try to fix what makes hotspots prone to violence.”
• From The Chicago Tribune: “Lawsuit: Mug shot website posts incomplete records so sister site can solicit ‘takedown’ fees”
• From Associated Press: “Out of prison, then back in? Unique plan aims to break cycle”
• From The Washington Post: “Chicago’s top federal prosecutor urges city and Justice Dept. to move forward on police reform”
• From The New York Times: “Eight Executions in 10 Days, and One Drug at the Center”
• From NBC News: “U.S. Hate Crimes Up 20 Percent in 2016, Fueled by Election Campaign: Report”
• From The Takeaway: “Exploring The Shadow World of ICE Prisons”

Trump Criminal Justice Watch

• From WESA: “Pushing Science In Policing Under A ‘Law And Order’ President”
• From The Trace: “Meet the Hardliner Jeff Sessions Picked to Carry Out His Violent Crime Crackdown Steve Cook, a former federal prosecutor, fiercely supports controversial policies calling for lengthy prison sentences.”
• From The Hill: “Legal battles to watch over president’s new travel ban”
• From The Associated Press: “Gorsuch has ruled for police, and suspects, in crime cases”

Odd criminal justice fascination of the week

From Medium: “Does this true crime book sound true to you?”

The Appeal is a weekly newsletter keeping you informed about criminal justice news in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania and beyond. It is written and compiled by Matt Stroud, ACLU-PA’s criminal justice researcher, along with ACLU-PA interns Morgan Everett and Bethel Habte.

If you have suggestions for links or criminal justice-related work that you’d like to highlight in The Appeal — or ways that we might improve — please email Matt Stroud at mstroud@aclupa.org. And if someone forwarded this email to you, and you’d like to receive it every Friday, you can subscribe here.

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