Improving police accountability in Austin with body-worn and in-car cameras
In a report released January 26, 2022, the Office of Police Oversight (OPO) compared the Austin Police Department’s (APD) current body-worn and dashboard camera policies with national best practices in policing to develop policy recommendations to improve public safety outcomes for community members and officers alike.
Background
The use of body-worn and dashboard cameras by police departments dates back decades. Today, three-quarters of police departments across the country use body-worn and dashboard cameras. The Austin Police Department (APD) began utilizing body-worn cameras in 2015. The following year, the Bureau of Justice Assistance, with funding from the 2016 Department of Justice Appropriation Act, awarded the City of Austin a $750,000 grant to expand the city’s body-worn camera program.
In the 2019–2020 Biennial Report to the Texas Legislature, the Governor’s Public Safety Office highlighted the value of body-worn cameras for officers and public safety. The report points to body-worn cameras when stressing the importance of programs that are “strengthening policing protocols across the state.” According to the report, body cameras assist in conducting investigations, protecting the public and officers, and improving training for law enforcement. Governor Abbott’s FY 2022–2023 Budget also underscores the necessity of body cameras for peace officers and calls upon the 87th Legislature to fund grants for state law enforcement agencies to buy and maintain body camera equipment.
How body-worn and dashboard cameras help transparency and accountability.
Many studies show overwhelming public support for the use of body-worn cameras by police officers. In some communities, distrust of law enforcement exists due to systemic biases and as a remnant of their historical exclusion from the full protections of justice. Ideally, cameras should foster transparency between police officers and the community while encouraging officer accountability and deterring misconduct. Body-worn camera and dashboard camera footage provide critical evidence for investigations into police encounters involving alleged excessive force or other policy violations. These first-hand accounts can result in discipline and training to better serve community members.
Concerns about body-worn and dashboard cameras
Despite clear support for their use, body-worn and dashboard cameras are not without flaws. Their effectiveness in increasing transparency and accountability is subjective. As with all technology, body-worn and dashboard cameras’ efficacy depends on the user. Additionally, the technology for body-worn cameras differs from that of dashboard cameras. The use of sirens or exceeding a certain speed threshold can activate a police vehicle’s dashboard camera, but body-worn cameras need manual activation and deactivation. There are also concerns about the policy language that instructs officers on the appropriate use of body-worn cameras and dashboard cameras and the administrative protocols related to the release of camera footage to the public.
OPO’s role
In 2020, the City Manager directed the Office of Police Oversight to provide recommendations on Austin Police Department’s General Orders. OPO began by analyzing APD’s existing policies related to the use of force and implementing a community engagement campaign to seek public input about those policies and OPO’s proposed recommendations. A final report synthesizing our data and the feedback received from community members was released and presented to the City Manager and APD in 2021.
OPO is implementing this three-phase approach again to review APD’s body-worn and dashboard camera policies. Our latest report, “Body-Worn Cameras & Dashboard Cameras: Policy Review and Recommendations,” examines APD’s current policies, discusses how APD’s current guidelines compare to national best practices in policing and proposes changes to improve transparency and accountability within APD, as well as safety for the community and police officers.
What we found in our research
Our research found nine critical areas within the Austin Police Department’s existing body-worn and dashboard camera policies where improvements could improve public safety:
1.Reliance on policies from Lexipol leads to vague, lenient guidelines and removes the community from the policymaking process.
APD relies on a private corporation called Lexipol to write many of its policies. Research has shown that Lexipol does not seek local community input when writing policies.
2. The current purpose statements governing body-worn cameras and dashboard cameras need to be revised to align with the City of Austin’s Reimagining Public Safety initiative.
The City of Austin has committed to reducing racial profiling, decreasing unnecessary police violence, and improving the dynamic between police officers and the community. Research shows that body-worn cameras and dashboard cameras can help achieve these goals when officers use them to record their interactions.
3. APD policy needs to align with recent state legislation and provide more clarity where state law is lacking
In 2021, the Texas Legislature passed House Bill 929, also known as the Botham Jean Act, which amended sections of the Texas Occupations Code governing the use of body-worn cameras by peace officers. The new law took effect on September 1, 2021. APD’s policy related to body-worn camera deactivation has not been updated to align with this new law.
4. The current concepts and definitions related to body-worn and dashboard cameras are unclear.
The General Orders permit officers to deactivate dashboard and body-worn camera audio for “administrative reasons,” however, the situations that constitute “administrative reasons” do not appear administrative and do not provide guidance for supervisors in authorizing the deactivation.
5. The current General Orders does not provide sufficient guidance to officers regarding activating and deactivating body-worn cameras.
Currently, the General Orders do not provide officers with good instruction regarding the activation and deactivation of body-worn cameras. This can result in an incident not being fully recorded and make it harder for APD supervisors to review incidents and hold officers accountable.
6. Officers are not required to document their use of body-worn cameras in an incident report or case file.
The current General Orders do not require officers to document whether they used a body-worn camera during an incident. APD removed sections of the General Orders that required this notation in September 2020. Additionally, the General Orders do not appear to comply with a Texas law [Texas Occupations Code Section 1701.657(c)] requiring officers to document a reason for not recording with their body-worn cameras when a recording was needed.
7. The title “Advisement & Consent” for General Order 303.3.2 is misleading.
The General Orders currently include a section titled “Advisement & Consent,” which suggests that officers inform community members that they are being recorded on a body-worn camera. The current policy does not discuss consent and does not guide when or how officers should advise someone that they’re being recorded.
8. The current General Orders do not require supervisors to conduct inspections of dashboard camera recordings.
Austin Police Department supervisors are required to conduct inspections of body-worn cameras. The inspections help supervisors check the working condition of the cameras and identify training opportunities. The current General Orders do not require supervisors to conduct such inspections of dashboard cameras.
9. The current General Orders do not support consistency or transparency in enforcement and discipline.
APD has applied the current Discipline Matrix inconsistently and routinely classifies violations of body-worn camera and dashboard camera policies as Supervisor Referral-Minor Policy Violations (SR-MPVs), which permit APD to close these cases without discipline or discipline officers without an investigation.
Our next steps
OPO will engage the community again through a series of virtual meetings and surveys to gather input on APD’s existing body-worn and dashboard camera policies. While these events will be educational and informative for participants, our primary goal is to center the voices of community members who the decision-making process often excludes.
Each event is open to the public and will have Spanish and American Sign Language interpretation services, with other languages available upon request. We will host these events via Zoom at 6:00 pm on February 23, March 2, March 9, and March 16.
Click here to take our survey or register for our event series.
After our community engagement series, we will review all the feedback and survey responses collected and present the findings to the City Manager and APD in late 2022. We hope that, through continued engagement and collaboration, we can help community members feel empowered in their role as the most important stakeholders in the process of rewriting the General Orders and improving public safety for all.
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