Honolulu police officers could soon be using artificial intelligence to help write reports, a move that the department says could free up cops to spend more time patrolling their beats, but critics say could damage the integrity of the state’s criminal justice system.
The idea is still in its early stages, but the department could pilot a program by the end of this year or next spring, Honolulu police interim Chief Rade Vanic said during Wednesday’s Honolulu Police Commission meeting.
The department would use a product offered by Axon, the Honolulu Police Department’s body camera vendor. The product uses audio transcripts and visuals from body camera footage to generate police reports.
Vanic said if HPD starts to use this technology, officers would still be required to review the reports and do things like add headings.
“They still have to have human input,” Vanic told commissioners.
While other police departments around the country are already using this technology, the concept is controversial, with groups like the ACLU of Hawaiʻi opposing it.
“AI technology is just too unreliable, untested, biased and also opaque,” said Wookie Kim, legal director at the ACLU of Hawaiʻi. “It’s not yet ready to be infused into one of the most important parts of the criminal legal system, which is the police report.”
Only one of the police commissioners raised concerns about the proposal during the meeting.
Christopher Magnus, who was confirmed earlier this month and served as police chief in three mainland cities, encouraged Vanic to get input from the public before moving forward with the idea.
“The use of AI,” he said, “is fraught with controversy and a variety of issues.”
The Pros And Cons
Vanic touted the concept as a way to help officers save time on report writing.
“That’s the reality of the job now is how much typing there actually is,” he said.
Instead of sitting parked on the side of the road spending 30-40 minutes writing up a report, an officer could be driving around his or her beat, talking to people in the community or conducting traffic stops, he said.
“Doing what cops do instead of typing their report,” he said.
Commissioner Laurie Foster said she read in a brochure on AI that officers spend 30-35% of their time on reports.
“Think about that,” she said. “We’re 30% down on staffing.”
Axon’s website claims its technology can cut an officer’s report writing time in half.
The technology “is a force multiplier for officers,” the site says, “leveraging generative AI and body-worn camera audio to produce high-quality draft report narratives in seconds.”
But Nicholas Schlapak, president of the state police union, urged caution in using AI to write reports. He said in a written statement that rushing to implement such a program “puts prosecutions at risk, officers’ jobs in jeopardy, and our department’s reputation on the line.”
The technology has been known to produce errors and even “hallucinate” information. Complaints have been filed against Hawaiʻi lawyers for using AI to write briefs that were later found to contain false information and cite fake cases.
Kim said AI can also have biases depending on how it is trained, and a program that is created for use by police officers could be trained to protect law enforcement officers rather than the public.
He also said police reports aren’t meant to be a completely objective or neutral accounting of an event, but to describe the officer’s perception of what happened.
AI might pick up something in a video or audio clip and determine that it was threatening, even if the officer didn’t notice it or perceive it as a threat at the time, he said.
Another issue, he said, is that AI won’t have the context officers have when going into a call, such as a person’s background or mental health state.
“Because police reports, they’re sort of the gateway to the criminal legal process and the criminal legal system, they’re just too important to delegate to artificial intelligence,” he said.
How It’s Being Used
Departments around the country are already using this technology, but only two states — Utah and California — require police departments to disclose publicly when officer reports are written using AI, according to The Conversation, a national nonprofit news organization.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom last week signed a law requiring law enforcement agencies to publicly disclose when AI is used to write a police report.
Vanic said the Honolulu Police Department also needs to come up with a policy on AI, which it doesn’t currently have.
“I definitely think we need community input,” he said. “We definitely need to work with stakeholders, the judiciary, the prosecutor’s office. We’d want to get best practices.”
Honolulu Prosecutor’s Office spokesperson Christine Denton said in an email that the office is in the early stages of researching the issue with the police department and it is too early to comment.
Vanic said the department may roll out an AI pilot project by the end of this year or next spring. He envisions it being used for lower-level reports at first, such as a car that was broken into overnight — not arrest reports or use-of-force reports.
He said he sees AI as a tool that can help officers be more efficient.
“If we can use technology through body-worn cameras, through artificial intelligence, to help an officer do his or her job easier,” he said, “why not? Let’s do it.”
Schlapak said any police AI program should be implemented with public review. The department should also look at various technology providers, not just settle with the vendor it is already using.
“And there must be an accountability system for all parties involved before we even start the conversation,” he said in a written statement. “Anything else is a recipe for disaster.”
Story originally published by Honolulu Civil Beat and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
