Not 59,000 each then?
I was worried for a moment...
Police forces are rapidly adopting body worn video (BWV) cameras with as many as 59,000 expected to be in use by the end of 2016/17 – according to chair of the police BWV user group Stephen Goodier. Goodier, who is also BWV programme manager, Hampshire Police, said as many as three-quarters of forces are in the process of …
Oh the camera doesnt have to be WORTH 59k. Just the supplier can charge that amount because its not the buyers money so they dont care about getting a good price.
Just like police batons cost £100 each in Northamptonshire and then £44 in Leicestershire, all because the buyer in Northamptonshire didnt negotiate very well and/or didnt care.
Seriously there are millions and millions of pounds to be saved in the public sector if people did their jobs correctly. Unfortunately they don't have the same pressures and cost saving willingness as the private sector, so the money gets wasted and put into the hands of big shareholders and bonuses for bosses.
And access to a solicitor & legal advice? How would that be maintained on the street?
Assuming Microsoft still has the high level friends it had during the Tony Blair days I assume that will be attempted through Skype.
"Sorry mate, we don't have a signal here"
Talking about friends, I guess that means stage 1 of Google Homeview is now in place*.
(*) the Germans got there first..
> (*) the Germans got there first..
Actually, I think it might have been the Americans.
No reason it couldn't be done on the street or in someone's home, legal advisor has to drive somewhere, not necessarily the nick.
Or for those wanting to waive the right, which the regulars may well want to, although obvious scope for intimidation there.
But it doesn't make much sense because arrest isn't necessary for a voluntary interview.
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> access to a solicitor & legal advice? How would that be maintained on the street?
Ah, but you see, the copper just says "All I need you to do is answer a few questions and then you can be on your way, isn't that better than me having to take you down to the Station and then wait for ages for the Solicitor to turn up?"
Joe Public thinks "Oh, he's being friendly and helpful", answers the questions and then finds that they've managed to accidentally say something incriminating and they're nicked anyway.
If a copper wants to "ask you a few questions", the correct answer is "NO COMMENT".
DO NOT say *ANYTHING* without legal advice because they just want you to open your mouth and put your foot in it as that makes their job so much easier.
"If a copper wants to "ask you a few questions", the correct answer is "NO COMMENT"."
Oddly enough, they don't often ask questions. They make statements along the lines of "I put it to you that...." and since they didn't ask a question, there's nothing to answer. Then copper says "suspect did not respond", as if that implies something. They make leading statements to get you to say things without them having to actually ask outright or make specific accusations.
And access to a solicitor & legal advice? How would that be maintained on the street?
Do you get those if you've not been arrested?
There's a big distinction between questioning people and arresting them. Sure, you could have a lawyer present every time you interact with the police, but you might find that the only benefit is to your lawyer. As I understand it, if you are not arrested, you are under no obligation to tell the police anything anyway.
On the whole, I think BWCs are a very good thing.
They keep the police honest (they have been shown to reduce the number of complaints of heavy-handedness against the police), and they are also useful in gathering evidence, especially when a crime is in commission.
After all, video evidence of a crime being committed stands up much better in court than first-person testimony from a police officer, and isn't subject to the human flaws of imperfect recall. This can also be valuable in the sadly all-too-common domestic violence cases. Where an officer attends a report of a DV attack (for instance a man beating his partner), the video evidence can show the injuries a victim may have received, without later having to rely on a combination of doctor's reports and dragging the victim through court as a witness, a process criminologists refer to as 'revictimisation'.
Is actually the moment the cop says "Hang on a minute, I want to ask you something". As soon as you are unable to leave freely, you have been "Arrested". That is different from being charged, or held.
To test if you have been arrested, try responding "No thanks" and walking away. See what happens next.
I despise the constant surveillance, and just sigh for the future security breach and info sharing that storing the data in the "cloud" will end in, but the unblinking badge cam should reduce the incidents of cops tramping on civil rights, or at least make cases easier to prosecute and yield larger civil fines against that special kind of cop who do not do the right things the right way.
It is hoped that the cameras are to be used to interview suspects at crime scenes rather than arresting them and taking them into a police station.
So much easier interviewing suspects when there isn't a duty solicitor around to give them legal advice. If they would be arrested, then it is on suspicion of committing an arrestable offence, so they will be interviewed "under caution"? Without benefit of the free legal advice which they are entitled to if arrested?
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In France, a policeman can arrest you on absolutely NO grounds ... does not have to give you a reason, and can keep you for 24 hours. With recent anti-terror laws, if they can convince a judge that you might have terrorist links, they can extend that up to 144 hours (6 days) - to make sure you lose your job.
They can extend to 48 hours if they can charge you for something that can get you 1 or more years in jail. If the case is difficult, as in, they do not yet know what to charge you with exactly, they can extend to 72hours ...
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Tony also made it illegal to sell grey squirrels.
More to the point, it is illegal to release grey squirrels into the wild. This means that if you accidentally capture a squirrel, for instance in a rodent trap intended to catch rats, you legally have to destroy it. You also have to do this in a humane way, or you get prosecuted for animal cruelty. This happened to one man who knew he couldn't release the squirrel, so despatched it in the most humane way he could think of by drowning it:
This happened to one man who knew he couldn't release the squirrel, so despatched it in the most humane way he could think of by drowning it
They should have waterboarded him for that. It's the most humane punishment I can think of. After all, it merely induces the experience of drowning. </sarcasm>
"*Did you know that it's now an offence to create a nuclear explosion?"
Reading the section you quoted that isn't true, under that bit of law you can perfectly legally create a nuclear explosion.. you just have to convince the court it wasn't a weapon 'no officer it was a science experiment that went wrong'...
Ok maybe the man on the street may have problems convincing a judge on that grounds but at least our scientists can actually research nuclear stuff which is an improvement over some other laws..
It is hoped that the cameras are to be used to interview suspects at crime scenes rather than arresting them and taking them into a police station.
I wonder how this will square with PACE? "Crime scene" interviews and formal interviews after an arrest are hardly equivalent to each other, even allowing for a difference in location; an arrested suspect is entitled to legal representation, and the interview will be dual recorded at a station designated under PACE with one copy being made available to the suspect's lawyer.
I am not saying that there is no place for video recordings using bodyworn cameras taken at a scene or during an immediate investigation; in that respect it is simply a technological variant of an audio recording or an old - fashioned one with "contemporaneous notes" taken by the interviewing officer. As a formal interview that would form part of the evidence chain leading to charge and prosecution rather than an arrest and detention under PACE (and all that that entails) IMHO it stinks.
Disclaimer: IANAL, and my previous employment with a police force was technical, not as an attested constable.
I was on a night out one night, a friend of mine was attacked by four men. He was despatching with the fourth when the police turned up. As they saw him winning, they arrested him. The next day, the CCTV exonerated him for any assault or whatever charges.
That night one of the PO's got his truncheon out because I asked to see his serial number ( he'd removed it ). Another tried to twist my arm around my back and arrest me when I tapped him gently on the arm to get his attention.
Anyway they did my mate for being 'drunk and disorderly' in the van ( obviously no witnesses ).
After that night I lost all trust in the police. Unfortunately it was before videocameras were part of mobiles.
Evidence from what was said prior to an arrest could always be recorded in the policeman/woman's notebook and often used in evidence at court. It was always open to dispute of course, and is, in principle at least, treated rather differently to what is said in a formal interview under caution (which have had to be recorded since the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984).
What the the body worn cameras ought to so is remove much of the "subjectivity" involved in remembering what was actually said (even where is was recorded in a notebook). It should also, in principle give rather less leeway for the police to represent things in their way.
It should also, in principle give rather less leeway for the police to represent things in their way.
No argument there.
It's the idea that people that need to be questioned shouldn't be taken to the police station that concerns me. If the police were willing to do that before then it must have been for a reason, and if it's a reason good enough to take somebody in, then the people being questioned ought to have the benefit of legal advice. The fact that the interview is being recorded is beside the point in that regard.
I can understand to some degree why the police might want this: they are under huge pressure to work miracles with an ever-shrinking amount of resources and personnel, but their attempts to achieve this by sacrificing or limiting our rights isn't an acceptable response to that particular challenge IMO.
@ Steven Jones: all true, but... as a subsitute for formal arrest and recorded interview in accordance with PACE (as it currently stands) with an accused having access to legal advice, all properly recorded * by the Custody Sergeant in the Custody Log this idea still stinks, particularly if the suspect (or even any witness) could be legitimately described as "vulnerable".
* Yes I know I am throwing myself wide open to accusations of over - optimism but if a person has access to legal advice the opportunities for errors (cough) are significantly reduced if not eliminated.
Anybody who makes blanket statements on the internet deserves everything that is coming their way.
FTFY.
In this case, the camera doesn't lie. The full caution is:
"You do not have to say anything. But, it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence."
https://www.gov.uk/arrested-your-rights/when-youre-arrested
@JohnMurray, just to add to that; Anything THEY say can be used in evidence against you, without cameras. However, there must be some protections within the law if the fuzz are going to start questioning suspects in the street without any formal processing or observation of their rights to a lawyer and/or legal advice.
My other concern is what happens to the millions of hours of video that may not be incriminating at the time but could be dragged out at a later date to try to reinforce an unconnected incident or just used for fishing. With all this footage including random passers by, it is possible with the Nationwide facial recognition the cops would like to have on everybody that at some future time a cop could just feed an individusl's face into the system to see what they might have that could be used to implicate an innocent who has rubbed a cop up the wrong way for example.
So why are they spending what must be quite a lot of money in advance of those changes that will be required?
I think this works best without changes to the law.
In the event that a police officer is accused of malfeasance of any sort, the camera will usually answer the question immediately - so an innocent officer can be exonerated the same day, and a guilty one shown up for what he is[1].
Changes in the law to remove the PACE safeguards would be an enormous retrograde step.
Vic.
[1] Neglecting any camera fault / flat battery -type excuses (which would probably be grounds for increased scrutiny).
In the event that a police officer is accused of malfeasance of any sort
Yeah. Brings to mind recent US experience.
With the escalating 'War on Terror' and expectation of atrocities this side of La Manche - rather more often than once a decade, say - given how blithe HMG are about our traditional, at least in theory, way of life, maybe they expect to be routinely carrying handguns before much longer?
I worked a long time ago as a defence solicitor's clerk, and I still think back with fondness to one case which had video evidence from a freelance cameraman.
The police officer swore on oath that he had chased the defendant, never lost sight of him, and had definitely arrested the right man. The sight of his frozen panic-stricken face in the witness box when confronted with a video of him running past the defendant who was leaning against a van casually watching him go by...
Bring them on - cameras work to protect all of us from the mistelling of stories, fabricated, mistaken or true.
this was in the UK ?
Trial judges are there to see the rules of evidence are followed, and one of those rules - a *fundamental* rule, is the concept of "disclosure", which means one side can't pull a rabbit out of a hat (no matter what TV shows you watch) and go "ta-da !". Woe betide any side that tries that in a UK court - the judge would go ballistic and very likely seek to admonish the offending side (prosecution or defence) with the costs of the collapsed trial.
In reality, if such video evidence only became available once the trial had started (since it's axiomatic that had it been available before the trial, there would have been no trial) then the defence would have approached the judge to introduce new evidence, at which point the prosecution (CPS) would have a chance to review it. I would suspect at that point, the CPS would then offer no more evidence, and the judge would direct the jury to acquit.
There have been courtroom surprises, but they are rare. The only one I remember was of a person arrested by the police in the 1990s (it may have been the poll tax riots). The police claimed they were arrested at such and such a time, which placed them at the scene of an assault. As the case was being heard, a series of photographs was shown to the jury, one of which showed the arresting PC putting the accused in the police van.
With his wristwatch clearly visible, and showing a time completely different to the claimed time.
Sharp-eyed defence lawyer spotted it, and started asking questions about police procedure for synchronising watches before operations, and was assured it had been done. They then queried the picture, and (if memory serves again) the judge immediately shut the trial down.
...video evidence from a freelance cameraman... (snip) Bring them on - cameras work to protect all of us from the mistelling of stories, fabricated, mistaken or true.
I think you have a weak argument there. From your description the crucial evidence was based on video from a freelance cameraman. That's fine, but there is a world of difference between freelance footage and that obtained from bodyworn police cameras.
I suggest you have a look at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Ian_Tomlinson,
and in particular the paragraph headed "Encounter with officer".
Don't overlook the possibility of unhelpful bodyworn camera evidence "going missing" or a particular camera being found to be faulty.
"Don't overlook the possibility of unhelpful bodyworn camera evidence "going missing" or a particular camera being found to be faulty."
According to the previous story here the other day about the Met and BWC, the officer has full control over whether or not the camera should be operating. IIRC they are not capable of recording non-stop over a standard shift length, nor can the battery last that long. So, what we are seeing are cameras which, in terms of a "bad" officer, will only ever be switched on if s/he thinks it might support their case. I'm sure there will be a well populated list of ready made excuses as to why the camera was not switched on at the crucial moment.
"That has the potential to make us more efficient – rather than arresting a vulnerable person and having to take them into the station. It's not about taking away anyone's liberty, all their rights and entitlements would be exactly the same."
No change in rights? On Street questioning? How many people walk around with their solicitor 24x7?
Er, you really aren't getting the hang of this totalitarian state thing are you?
Don't worry, you will soon enough.
THEY, are allowed to do what they want: film us, record us, spy on us, abuse us verbally and phsically.
WE, are not allowed to do anything unless THEY say we can: no filming, no recording, no questioning the fact that they are above the law and will just do what the hell they like anyway.
We are getting pretty close to end point fascism here. It can't actually go much further - the apparatus is nearly totally in place. And boy, when it is, what a party all us proles are in line for.
There is one final bastion, but I believe that is also about to be breached quite soon with microphones and cameras and odor detection devices in everyone's home. Yes, there will be cameras in the bedroom. No you will not be able to turn them off.
'Crazy and paranoid' you say. Ha, that's what they said back in the 50's when I time traveled back there. I told them, I warned them, I said: do you know, in just half a century your tv will record you in your living room and record what you say and send it back to big brother. All your letters will be opened and read and stored for future possible use against you, ditto all your phone conversations. Machines, not humans will decide who is guilty and who goes on the list for further spying. The police and politicians will be above the law, but what is worse, they won't even pretend anymore, they will just taunt you everyday about how powerless and weak you are, rubbing your nose in it. Every short journey you make will be recorded by multiple cameras. Machines will detect if you are thinking about doing something wrong. If you are attacked, the cameras will be found to not be working of course, that is if they even bother to check.
"You are delusional, Mr. time traveler", they said. "Things would never get to that state of affairs - the people just would not allow it, besides, that is the sort of stuff they do in totalitarian states like China, not good ol' Blighty".
I sighed, the little lambs had no idea then, as they do not now, just how much they are being fattened up for the kill.
Every day this country just resembles an open prison more and more. When the roof blows next time, it will be because it has all been planned to happen that way. We are a truly divided and conquered nation by this point. Gender hatred. Racial hatred. Ageist hatred. Religious hatred. Class hatred. The poor will come to truly hate the rich, and the rich will just continue hating the poor as they always did.
I must say though, I'm tending to admire them more and more by the day (our psychopathic and mentally deranged overlords). Their persistence is relentless, their plan ruthless. They will stop at nothing. We will be made to lose any decent shred of humanity we have left, until we truly do resemble the farm animals they take us for. We are being herded. Then we will truly be farmed.
The Shephards just got some new toys that's all.
All in all, it's just a, 'nother brick in the wall...
Whilst I think this is a very good idea and if any force / officer has a problem with it then we should ask "what have you got to hide", we do need to ensure that we don't get regular "malfunctions" as seems to be the case with CCTV.
> access to a solicitor & legal advice? How would that be maintained on the street?
I'm reminded of this advice:
http://www.kirkpiccione.com/10-reasons-not-talk-police/
I come from the future.
I can not say too much.
But, I will check back with you in ten years time when you have made all your FOI's (to be outlawed in just fifteen years time from now actually, but don't tell anyone I told you that or I'll be in the shit with my boss again).
I think you will find it informative how many times the cameras were 'just not switched on - oopsie', or had 'technical problems', or the 'hard disk they recorded to was faulty', or 'we really don't know what went wrong this time but lessons have been learned after no stone was left unturned', or 'the network it was relaying information over was temporarily down', when it came to actual police officers being prosecuted for wrongdoing, or whole cases becoming inadmissible because of conflicting evidence etc. etc. when compared to the amount of abuses of power this will yield via the obvious intimidation it will provide.
Just like now in fact, with regard to CCTV. But I wouldn't go trying to find out the facts and figures of it all. You'll only be put on the 'even naughtier' list, soon to become a 'domestic terrorist'. There is a reason why no one speaks up. There is a reason why people are afraid. There is a reason why no one questions the things they already know the answers to. So, good luck with that, as they say.
You humans are a curious lot. So trusting, so naive, so wanting to believe in the goodness of your fellow man, when all around you, there is nothing but evidence to the contrary. I believe you coined the term 'cognitive dissonance' to describe, partially, the phenomenon. But we call it something else where I come from.
Yes, I came from the future, and I'm bloody glad I'll be back there in five minutes, in a galaxy far far away...
Toodle pip earthlings, I would say it's been fun, but, you know...
Anyway, don't sweat the small stuff. Your civilization will not exist in 5 thousand years. So, just be nice to each other, enjoy the time you have, make the most of the beautiful people around you, love, give, be happy... oh, sorry, I forgot the whole point: you just can't bloody bring yourselves to do that can you. So carry on hating, destroying, plotting, being clever - it's what you do best (and the reason why you won't survive longer than another 5 thousand years). And the saddest part is that you were one of the few advanced civilizations to exist, that had the potential to reach the outer stars, to start again anew after Star Death. But you just couldn't bloody well sort it out, could you? (again, don't tell anyone I told you, I'm just a gabbler.)
But don't mind me. Forget I said anything.
Enjoy the time you have!
You can do this in the US, when the cops are in the public, can you do this in the UK
With very few exceptions[1] - yes, you can.
Of course, that won't stop them trying to confiscate your equipment and claim you're acting unlawfully...
Vic.
[1] e.g. when your use of a camera would inadvertently record images of a secure establishment where photography is not permitted.
When faced with any "He said, She said" situation, the only definitive answer is a record. If the police are recording, that's a great step forward and I imagine cuts a ton of paperwork. There's also nothing stopping you recording them either (we have every police commissioners word on this, even if it's not quite reached the frontline in some places).
Whether or not someone voluntarily speaks to an officer without a solicitor is neither here nor there (that's always been their choice and they were also subject to the possibility of a recording being made in a public place - now they just KNOW it's being made). This can be used to discredit witnesses as much as back them up ("But at the time you said a green jacket, and now you say you're not sure...").
However much abuse of position you believe might be in place already, having cameras only lessens the scope for possible abuse, not increases it. "Camera off, whoops accident, camera in" is infinitely more suspicious than just "He fell down the stairs", for instance, especially if it's mandated. Some arrests aren't valid if the uniform is incorrect, or the officer didn't identify themselves correctly, same kind of thing. "Your camera wasn't operational? Why didn't you report it on your radio and return to your station, then, like you would have to if your patrol car was faulty or your other equipment non-functional?".
Body-cameras are a good use of technology here. And I'd like to see quite how much random junk and paperwork the police are able to combat right from the offset because they are recording. "You were driving", "No I wasn't, that was my mate driving", etc. In patrol cars they already are being used to bring officers to justice just as much as others (the incident with the police shooting in the US where the officer was then arrested for murder, the ones "jerking off" - quite literally - on duty, and so on).
It's a step forward, however much you trust the police or believe their intentions.
Forget the Cloud. They're going to need some large data racks and good tracking to manage all of the footage.
The Los Angeles police department ran out of budget to store the video coming in from BWV cams. Legally, they have to keep it for three years which is the statute of limitations on bringing a case against a police officer for abuse. It comes down to one argument that it's good to have AV of police/public interactions and on the other hand, it may be too expensive to justify. If the LAPD doesn't have the video, there is no requirement to spend money on storage. They are also not allowed to edit the video down. Not that there would be budget to have scores of people reviewing all of the video.
Most of the time police officers don't get into the sorts of things that feature on cop shows. It's just boring patrolling and talking to people. There needs to be a rational way to just dump useless footage without creating any liability.
Say one camera does a Tb a month (vastly over-estimated but you never know).
That's 590Tb a month.
7 Pb a year.
21 Pb overall for three years.
Sorry, but although that sounds a lot, any decent datacentre, cloud provider or even state-wide serious IT storage probably can handle that quite easily. Especially if most of it is properly compressed, is offline for 2/3rds of the day when off-duty, etc.
And especially as they just need 1 Pb of "live" storage for the first few months and then the rest is offline storage backing from that.
A single 42U rack:
http://www.storagenewsletter.com/rubriques/systems-raid-nas-san/aberdeen-petarack/
Half a million dollars to start. Compared to the rollout of 590,000 HD, portable, chargeable, rugged, court-verified cameras, it probably doesn't figure that much. Call it ten million dollars. That's probably a drop in the ocean compared to the service contract alone.
If the result of the police having cameras and recording witnesses is that they clam up in case they implicate themselves then this is not going to help the investigation of crime.
Personally I would be reluctant to be recorded on video as a witness. I don't want to be cross examined at a later date ( maybe years later ) about something I can barely remember and have my evidence compared to the hard facts of the video evidence.
"The police must be held accountable! They must be forced to wear cameras so that we can prove that we're living in a police state!!! When will this Orwellian nightmare end?!?!"
Police get body cameras...
"We're living in a police state!!! The fascists are even wearing cameras now to film us 24/7!!! It's Big Brother!!! When will this Orwellian nightmare end?!?!"
Most plods don't 'walk the beat.' They drive around in their nice warm cars. So for each camera have two (or more) batteries. On being worn and switched on, the other being charged in the car. For the short times a plod is walking the beat, then a freshly charged battery from the plods station should last until s/he gets back into the warm.
There should be NO reason for a body camera not to be working. Every "Ooopsie, it's bust." should be investigated by an independent agency. Appearing before such an agency multiple times should be cause for a disciplinary review.
Two reasons:
1. As soon as someone is arrested Plod get a whole new set of powers, especially the authority to go round to the arrested person's house and trash it. [Sorry officer, I mean conduct a thorough search for evidence related to the matter for which he was arrested.]
2. Battery life issues will require that officers have the control only to turn it on when "something interesting" is happening. It will quickly become accepted that "nothing interesting" is happening when Plod is not doing what he ought, and that therefore he was justified in not recording it. [Just remember that NOT ONE SINGLE CAMERA was working at Stockwell tube station when Cressida Dick was earning her subsequent promotion.]
I wonder if there is an due diligence, in the price being paid for these devices.
With such a large amount of public money.
I see the greater Manchester police spent 2,000,000 on 3,000 devices. So that's a cool 666quid for each unit. Ballpark $800+ USD. being the device are from USA, which USA pays $500 a piece. Are we being had again!
Ignore the cloud part, I think there is some unbelievable profiting being had.
How can public find what the costs have been on these devices.
A state of the art BWC unit with even 4G technology cost is less than $200 supposing Taser devices in performance features and abilities.
Scale this up to 59,000units, someone is having a cool serious amount of profit in their sky rocket.