David Michael Miller
News-Body-Cams2_crDMM-11232017
Eleven law enforcement agencies in Dane County have equipped officers with body cameras, including Middleton, Fitchburg and the University of Wisconsin police. Milwaukee uses them, so does Oshkosh, Appleton and La Crosse. But Madison officials remain unconvinced that police body cameras will increase transparency or build trust with the public, even as more communities around the state adopt the technology.
Jim Palmer, executive director of the Wisconsin Professional Police Association, says it’s “disappointing Madison isn’t on board.”
“Madison clearly seems to be swimming against the tide on this one. From our vantage point, it’s befuddling because there is widespread public support for it,” Palmer says. “There are limitations but we believe law enforcement and the public benefit from this technology. It really doesn’t make any sense.”
On Nov. 13, the Common Council removed $123,000 from the 2018 capital budget that would have funded a pilot program to buy 47 body cameras for the Madison Police Department. The council shot down a similar proposal in 2015.
Ald. Rebecca Kemble says there are good reasons why Madison isn’t going with the flow. The city is waiting for a comprehensive study of Madison Police policies and procedures, which is expected on Dec. 14. There’s also been a tepid response from community members. And Rep. Jesse Kremer (R-Kewaskum) has sponsored legislation that would restrict public access to body camera footage.
“The police don’t need any more of anything. That [citizen-led] committee found that the police don’t even really care if they have body cameras,” Kemble says. “People in the community could take or leave them; it certainly wasn’t going to make them trust the police more. So what’s the rush?”
Ald. Paul Skidmore, who proposed the pilot project, says he’ll keep pushing for it. He says the camera technology provides “transparency and accountability” that will quell suspicions surrounding officer-involved shootings and other potentially controversial police actions.
“The police department has been beaten down. They’ve been called murderers. At the budget meeting they were called Nazis. How would you feel? I’d be a little bit gun-shy,” Skidmore says. “Body cameras have caught officers doing things they shouldn’t. There have also been allegations against police officers that have been found to be baseless. Cameras are amoral, they just record.”
A 2017 survey from St. Norbert College’s Strategic Research Institute for the Wisconsin Professional Police Association found that 84 percent of Wisconsin citizens support equipping police with body cameras. Support among people of color for the technology was 91 percent.
Palmer says, in recent years, law enforcement has embraced the tool. “We don’t think body cams are a panacea,” Palmer says. “But it’s also clear they can provide invaluable evidence to exonerate an officer, protect an officer against complaints and also put a community at ease because [cameras] add transparency.”
But those arguments have not convinced many in Madison. Jacquelyn Boggess, executive director of the Madison-based Center for Family Policy and Practice, facilitated focus groups for the city’s Community Policing and Body Camera Ad Hoc Committee. She says community members of color were far more concerned about “racial discrimination and fear of the police” than whether or not to equip officers with body cameras.
“There weren’t strong feelings about whether or not the police had this [technology]. People were far more concerned about fear and mistrust,” Boggess says. “Generally, they didn’t believe that anything would have an impact on addressing mistrust of the police, including body cameras. That mistrust extended to people not believing the police were going to use the body cameras the way they said they were going to use them.”
Veronica Figueroa, executive director of UNIDOS Against Domestic Violence, was on the 2015 Community Policing and Body Camera Ad Hoc Committee that came up with recommendations for community-police relations. She worries that Madison’s immigrants and refugees would be less likely to report crimes if police officers are recording video.
“It’s important to me that clients feel safe and that their confidentiality and privacy is protected. To me, body cameras pose a threat to those values and to those systems,” Figueroa says. “I don’t think body cameras build trust or build a good relationship with civilians and police officers. It’s people-to-people contact, the ability to understand people’s struggle that will change perceptions about the police. I don’t think a camera can do that.”
Ald. Shiva Bidar-Sielaff sponsored a motion at the Nov. 13 city council meeting to remove funding for the body camera pilot program. She said it was premature to approve the project before the final results of a $400,000 independent study of Madison police policies and procedures conducted by California-based consultants at the OIR Group was released.
“We’ve made this investment, we should wait to get the results,” says Bidar-Sielaff.
Two days later the OIR Group presented preliminary findings of its report to Madison’s police ad hoc committee. Consultant Michael Gennaco advised having a policy in place on how body cameras would be used before launching a pilot program. He also cited a recent study of body cameras conducted in Washington, D.C. that found the technology “had no detectable, meaningful effect on documented uses of force.”
But, Gennaco said at the meeting, cameras do help keep track of officers. “It does provide a way for police agencies to have a better sense of what its officers are doing everyday,” he said.
The OIR Group doesn’t support implementing a body camera program in Madison if state lawmakers pass Kremer’s bill regulating access to camera footage.
Palmer says his union thinks current protections regarding public access to body camera footage are “more than sufficient.” But his organization backs Kremer’s legislation.
“We do support the bill because we believe even more agencies would be adding this technology if there were statutorily-defined retention periods,” Palmer says. “I’ve talked to quite a few chiefs and sheriffs that have indicated that they would acquire body cameras for their officers today if those statutory guidelines were established. They want to know how long they have to retain that evidence so they can factor that in, relative to the cost.”
Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney also supported Kremer’s bill at an Oct. 5 public hearing. The sheriff has budgeted for body cameras, but is waiting for state guidelines before implementing the program.
Madison police estimate that having cameras on every officer would cost $1 million, with additional operating costs annually. Chief Mike Koval notes that his department’s SWAT team already has a dozen body cameras.
“Beat cops have largely told me, ‘Bring it on. We have nothing to hide. We’re professional and we’re all for the transparency,’” says Koval, who adds that he also understands concerns about cost and privacy.
Kemble predicts that Kremer’s bill will keep Madison from ever funding police officer body cameras.
“I don’t think it’s ever going to happen. If this state law passes, then even the supposed virtues of body cameras will be gone because only the police will have access to the footage,” Kemble says. “It’s not going to happen, at least as long as I’m on the council.”
