Generated by the Body Worn Cameras. Clearly from a prosecutors perspective, this evidence can be very, very important. When you present a case to a jury, certainly they would benefit from being able to see the place and the circumstances immediately after the commission of a crime. Jurors would benefit from being able to evaluate credibility and demeanor of the witnesses that are recorded contemporaneously with the crime. And when we Start Talking about officerinvolved shootings, Body Worn Cameras can certainly play a role in determining whether or not the officer acted within the scope of his authority or whether that officer may have violated his oath and acted outside justifiable, legal grounds. So clearly the prosecution Community Supports the use of Body Worn Cameras in appropriate circumstances with appropriate safeguards and appropriate procedures involved in the use of the Body Worn Cameras. As has been mentioned already there are some areas of concern that are shared by prosecutors, and i need to stress that its critically important as we go down this path that the prosecution community be part of the dialogue in creating policies and procedures not just at the federal level, but also at the state and local level to be able to engage with their local Law Enforcement authorities to identify the issues that may be very unique to each jurisdiction because in this discussion one size does not fit all. We are talking about judicial districts, Law Enforcement agencies, sheriffs departments of various sizes and what may work in one locale may also not work in other locales. The question that is critical for prosecutors is exactly what is being recorded . What is the extent of the recording . And perhaps another way to put it, when should you not record . Be easy to say just record everything, anytime that an officer is on the street, the camera is on, but is this really the process that we want . It certainly results in extraordinary costs associated with this. The costs of not necessarily the camera itself but the cost of appropriate storage archiving, and cataloging so that that evidence can really be used in an appropriate manner. Prosecutors are also concerned with respect to the storage and retrieval of that evidence. We have obligations to present this evidence to defense attorneys. We must be able to know which portion of a recording pertains to a specific case and be able to distribute that to the defense bar. That leaves us to the question of what is our broader responsibility to the public . Many states have open records laws or criminal justice records acts that mandate that much of this information must be disclosed. Where is the right line between collecting this important evidence and what in fact we will be distributing to the public at large. And as has been already testified to these cameras are not a panacea because they show different perspectives. We are very optimistic of the possibility of Body Worn Cameras and used appropriately, we feel it can be an important tool for both Law Enforcement and prosecutors. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Good afternoon, chairman graham, Ranking Member whitehouse, and members of the subcommittee. Im wade henderson, president and ceo of the Leadership Conference on civil and human rights. A coalition of more than 200 National Organizations charged with the promotion and protection of the rights of all persons in the United States. Im also the joseph l. Row, area professor of public law at the university of the district of columbia. Thank you for bringing us together today. Over the last year we have seen a growing movement to address policing practices that have a disproportionate impact on lowincome communities communities of color, and africanamericans in particular. These practices like discriminatory profiling, excessive use of force and both explicit and implicit racial bias in Law Enforcement, have framed the National Debate around Police Reform and prompted a National Conversation on the use of technology, specifically Body Worn Cameras as one possible means to enhance accountability and transparency in policing. Americans across the nation have been transfixed by a series of video clips recorded by concerned citizens that capture tragic encounters between police and the people they serve. Not since the brutal images of the bloody sunday marchers being savagely beaten in selma, alabama, were broadcast across the nation 50 years ago have we seen video make such a profound impact on our nations public discourse. Prior to these broadcasts, the Voting Rights act did not exist, but those images inspired the nation to write and pass the Voting Rights act less than five months later. Todays citizenrecorded videos have inspired the nation once again. When one hears eric garners plea that he cant breathe or sees walter scott being shot from behind its hard not to be moved. Chairman graham you spoke for millions and certainly for me when you described the video of Walter Scotts killing in North Charleston as, quote, horrific and difficult to watch. There is a temptation to create a false equivalence between these citizenrecorded videos and Body Worn Cameras operated by Law Enforcement. I urge the committee not to give in to this temptation because Body Worn Cameras wont be operated by concerned citizens and wont be recording officers. They will, instead, be directed at members of the community. Thats why last friday the Leadership Conference joined with a Broad Coalition of civil rights privacy, and media rights organizations to release shared civil rights principles for the use of Body Worn Cameras by Law Enforcement. These principles, which i would like to introduce into the record today, recognize that cameras are just a tool not a substitute for broader reforms of policing practices. They point out that quote, without carefully crafted policy safeguards in place, there is a real risk that these new devices could become instruments of injustice rather than tools for accountability, unquote. Thats why its so important that when cameras are deployed, its with a set of clear and narrowly defined purposes and that policies governing their use are developed in concert with public stakeholders. These cameras should be tools of accountability for police encounters, not a face or body scanner for everyone who walks by on the street. Facial recognition and other Biometric Technologies must be carefully limited. If those technologies are used together with body cameras, it will actually intensify stark disparities in surveillance in more heavily policed communities of color. Early experiences in Pilot Programs suggest that without strong rules, officers wont necessarily record when they should. For that reason, its vitally important that departments impose stringent discipline on officers who fail to record encounters that are supposed to be on camera. Finally, our principles call for a prohibition on officers viewing footage until after their reports are filed. Footage can be misleading or incomplete. Thats why other sources of evidence, including the officers own independent recollection of an incident, must be preserved. Allowing officers to preview footage provides an opportunity to conform reports to what the video appears to show rather than what the officer recollects. Moreover, there is a risk that the officers report and the video may seem to confirm each other independently when they really arent independent at all. The Leadership Conference urges federal, state and local governments as well as individual Police Departments to consider our principles as they develop and implement Body Worn Camera policies and programs. Without these appropriate safeguards, we are at risk of compounding the very problems in policing that we are seeking to fix. Thank you for your consideration. I look forward to your questions. Thank you, mr. Hendersen we will accept your principles without objection to make it part of the word. Senator franken, would you like to go first . Well, thank you. I feel like were in the infancy of this technology and as now Ranking Member on privacy technology, and the law subcommittee, i can see, you know, mr. Hendersen raised facial recognition and the use of that possibility. We know that technology is here and this raises so many issues. One of the issues i talked about with senator scott before this hearing just a little while ago was because weve heard testimony about the costs of this from sheriff bruder and in these studies miss miller is there any indication of the benefits in terms of money . In other words i would imagine that reducing by 80 90 the negative sort of interactions, that there may be an actual financial benefit from that . You know thats what we heard from the Police Executives we worked with. They said this drop in complaints, the drop of lawsuits has really helped them on the backend save money. There hasnt been a lot there havent been a lot of studies cost benefit analysis yet into the technology. My organization is actually starting one now, so were going to be working on that over the next year to kind of look at that, to see what are the cost savings in terms of lawsuits and investigations and do those help outweigh some of the significant costs . Anecdotally we hear absolutely that theyre worth it 100 even though the costs are very steep. Okay. So then theres benefits, but theres also cost i mean, theres Dollar Benefits versus other benefits. Sure, yeah. So the Dollar Benefits may not equal the cost the dollar cost. This is some of the issues that are being raised are when obviously when does the officer turn it on, when does he turn it off . I think all of us can sort of in our minds see 60 minutes stories of a miscarriage of justice because of editing of footage. I mean, thats not very hard to do. So then the question is is what kind of protocols are put in place to guarantee that that doesnt happen. And i imagine that thats been thought through. Does anybody have any response to that in terms of how do we avoid the 60 minutes story for the 20 20 story or the dateline story that we all have in our head 3 years from now or 20 years from now if somebody has been in prison for 20 years for something they didnt do because of a misuse of this . Sir . Senator franken its a terrific question. Let me first thank the chairman the Ranking Member, and the entire subcommittee for convening this hearing because you have by doing so put the issue squarely on the public table, and we appreciate that. To avoid the problem youve identified, lets begin with the need to develop these policies in public that there should be transparency and there should be involvement of various sectors of the public. Obviously, the Law Enforcement professionsals professionals, certainly those who are professional advocates in this area, but clearly the public at large scientists and others, and guidelines have to be developed with an eye toward the subsequent use of this information in various cases. Secondly, these cameras are really they offer protection both to good officers and to the public they serve. Officers who are, in fact inclined to do what they should be doing, and by the way that is the vast majority of officers who are currently on the beat, we lift them and salute the work that they are committed to do, but, unfortunately not every officer follows appropriate protocols. The existence of these cameras we hope will have a prophylactic impact and influence on officers who would be inclined not to follow existing protocols or present protocols. Third, it will require Law Enforcement to, in fact revisit the protocols they currently have so that they can ensure that their officers receive appropriate training on the use and appropriate involvement of these cameras. All of these steps we feel can contribute to a wise investment. This should not be undertaken lightly. The expense is obviously considerable, but when you balance the impact on the public they serve the money that will be saved in litigation costs that result from unfortunate incidents of bad policing the balance of the cost will probably work out in favor of the purchase of cameras. Well, thank you. And i know that all of you have the same kind of questions that i want to ask. I just want to mr. Weir talked about storage archiving retrieving, and disclosure essentially as all policies and before storage i guess is what do you shoot and when . Those are all and mr. Hendersen, you talked about a carefully crafted policy. So i think those are all things that we need to be keeping in mind as we go through this technology and this new world. Well, thank you for your thoughtful testimony and thats perhaps one of the most refreshing things i have heard is that how unsimple this is. This is a little bit more complicated than i think as meets the eye because some of the suggestion is all you need to do is put cameras on officers, and you are good to go, and that clearly doesnt appear to be the case. I have a particular question about victims. There is something called the crime federal crime victims rights act. One of the rights guaranteed is the right to be reasonably protected from the accused, and one of the others is a right to be treated with fairness and respect for victims dignity and privacy. So id be interested and miss miller, maybe we can go down the line, and id just like to get your comment on how we might be able to make sure that we protect the victims of crime. Thank you for the question. Our report we recommend that officers be required to obtain consent prior to filming conversations with crime victims. So that puts it gives the crime victim the dignity and the privacy to be able to determine whether he or she wants to be filmed, and then on the back end, of course theres the issue of Public Disclosure which is another privacy issue when it comes to victims, and, you know we recommend that agencies really consider the privacy as i said in my testimony, you dont want to see people at their most vulnerable show up on youtube, so careful reviewing, making sure that the footage isnt disclosed if its evidentiary, if it contains interviews with victims, and then careful redactions if it does have to be disclose approximated. Mr. Bruder . In South Carolina we are currently working through state legislation to implement Body Worn Cameras. One of the moves that weve done there is to basically make Body Worn Camera footage exempt or actually not even subject to the freedom of information act. Its not considered a Public Document. In doing that we make sure that the individual victims of those crimes theyre not their identity is not shared, their incident is not shared. Those types of things can only be achieved through the discovery process in court and thats one of the biggest concerns we had there as well as making sure people were not victimized for longterm periods based on that. Mr. Weir . Senator thank you. Thank you for the attention on victims. I think this is something thats very important in this discussion. The victims certainly have the right to be protected and they have the privacy rights associated with that. Any policies that have to be crafted have got to be done thoughtfully and in some detail. There may be circumstances, frankly, when recording of a victim would be appropriate thinking of the Domestic Violence victim that is recanting. But there are also circumstances where it would be absolutely inappropriate, victim of a sex assault or a child victim subject to abuse. I think the clarity of the policies within an agency becomes critical at that point because what youre left with in a courtroom setting is video for a number of purposes, and then it is remarkable in its absence when perhaps the most important individual in a proceeding is not on video and being able to explain that to a jury and perhaps having an appropriate jury instruction to explain that to a jury i think would be very, very important. Mr. Hendersen . Senator, we agree completely that there has to be clear operational policy for recording, retention and access to film. We certainly believe that the rights of individual victims should be protected and that there are clear incidents where the rights of privacy of the individual would preclude release, a casual release of this information. However, in incidents involving the police use of force there should be access to that information as quickly as possible and should be shared broadly with the public, and those policies that govern the retention and access to information should be strictly enforced so that when officers fail to record incidents that should be recorded, there should be consequences for that. Now, obviously there has to be adequate training. There has to be reinforcement and there has to be a sense that these officers are, in fact, being helped as much by the existence of these cameras as the public they serve and when those things work in conjunction with one another we think they produce positive results. Mr. Hendersen, if i could just follow up. As i was telling senator scott as we were talking about the