Police are using AI to write reports in at least 1 Maryland county, as critics raise red flags

BALTIMORE – The Wicomico County Sheriff’s Office says its new artificial intelligence (AI) program will boost efficiency, a claim echoed by legal experts who believe it could speed up operations. The ACLU and other opponents are less enthusiastic, raising concerns that programs like this could overlook key facts or details.

This AI service, known as Draft One, links to body cameras. The program then transcribes the audio pulled from the cameras after an incident, allowing the deputy to review the text instead of typing it from scratch. Developed by Axon, this is being tested or used by more than 20 departments nationwide, only counting those who acknowledged working with the material, including some in Colorado, Indiana, California, Florida, Oklahoma and Arizona.

In Maryland, multiple departments use AI or plan to use it in a variety of ways. Montgomery County police want to explore using AI to handle non-emergency 911 calls. Baltimore County recently drew attention for its AI-driven weapon detection system, used in public schools. Earlier this month, that system mistook a bag of chips in a student’s hand for a gun.

It’s accidents like that which have some people concerned. The sheriff’s office, meanwhile, points out this is an entirely different system, one that could speed up their work on a regular basis. Wicomico officials say writing a report can take anywhere from 15 minutes to three or more hours. That’s time taken away from responding to calls and helping residents.

“The idea is to speed up the report writing process for the deputies to get back out there faster,” Wicomico Sheriff’s Office Capt. Rich Wiersberg said. “Some of our guys aren’t the fastest typist, and this will help speed that process along.”

How does it work?

The way it works, Wiersberg said, is the service takes the audio interaction from body camera footage, and puts it into a paragraph format that can easily be inserted into police reports. It can also take dictation from interviews with a suspect or interaction at a crime scene between deputies.

Deputies can’t just click and approve it. There are several sections of the report that still have to be typed in manually. They also have to break up text. The transcript comes as one long paragraph. That material has to still be plugged in.

“The deputy can’t just click the report and file it through the system,” Wiersberg said. “The deputy also has to verify the accuracy of the report, and then make any changes.”

“The deputy reviews it, makes any tweaks that need to be made to make it accurate. Then the supervisor will review it, and then forward it up through the chain,” he said. “It’s just basically helping save transcription work to cut to the chase.”

Axon officials point to early data, testimonials listed on their website. The Fort Collins, Colorado Police Department was labeled as one, stating it reduced the time spent on incident reports by 67%. Another testimonial is labeled as being from the Rowlett, Texas Police, saying the program cut their time spent redacting evidence by 75%.

Concerns raised about using AI

There are some concerns, both from local and national sources, when it comes to using this program.

“I always agreed on voting for body cameras, but I was concerned about the AI because … I don’t full understand the technology,” Wicomico County Councilwoman Shanie Shields said.

Shields, a black woman, points to studies that show racial and other bias in AI. Those include the National Institute of Standards and Technology [NIST] and the MIT “Gender Shades” project, which found that facial recognition systems have higher error rates for people of color, particularly women of color. The NIST study found some algorithms falsely identified African-American and Asian faces 10 to 100 times more often than Caucasian faces.

Shields also worried about incorporating the technology into body cameras, where there’s the potential for abusing the technology.

“That’s what I’m concerned about,” she said. “They can take away what they do or [exaggerate] what the person they’re arresting did – They can change stuff with AI,” she said.

Those are some of the same concerns raised by the American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU] in a six-page white paper on the subject. What happens when AI doesn’t understand a specific accent and transcribes the event incorrectly? Or how will nonverbal cues such as a head nod or shaking the head no be documented, the ACLU asked.

“Even if an AI program doesn’t make explicit errors or exhibit obvious biases, it could still spin things in subtle ways that an officer doesn’t even notice,” the ACLU report argues.

Also, the ACLU report points out, the AI doesn’t know what is truth and what is a lie. It’s just transcribing.

“If the police report is just an AI rehash of the body camera video, it may write over certain facts or details the officer might have otherwise recorded, or even worse, allow officers to lie — for example if they see that something illegal they did was not captured by the camera,” the ACLU’s report argues.

Concerns addressed

On its website, Axon says Draft One uses a modified version of ChatGPT, adjusted to avoid any randomly generated factual errors.

Other legal experts feel there’s enough safeguards to protect against issues in the police reports.

Peter O’Neil, a defense attorney in Glen Burnie, says he understands the concerns that AI could generate false information. But he points out in order to hold up in court, the incident report would have to match what’s shown on the body camera.

“You have the ability to compare the written word versus the video and audio that you’re watching against the report that’s been written,” O’Neil said. “He can write whatever he writes, but it better be backed up by the body-worn camera video. Police would have to understand that if the AI writing doesn’t match the video, it will result in an [internal affairs] investigation.”

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