From August 2016 to January 2017, Israel Police conducted a pilot project that examined the effects of furnishing traffic and patrol officers. The experiment included 13 officers in Be’er Sheva, 25 in Petah Tikva, 23 in Ayalon (Tel Aviv) and 41 in Zevulun (Haifa). The project also included traffic police in the Negev and the unit attached to the holy sites in Jerusalem –138 officers altogether.
Police officials said the pilot was a “reality changer” in encounters between officers and civilians, suggesting this could lead to a significant change in the public’ trust in police, which has been declining for years. In fact, one of the uses police envision for the body cameras is in documenting from the officer’s point of view incidents which are taped and uploaded to the social networks by civilians, often without context and occasionally heavily edited. According to police, this has in recent years degraded public opinion about and reduced confidence in police officers.
The project covered 166,090 events, 5,245 videos were shot, 3,830 of which recorded incidents that resulted in further action, only 1,168 of which were entered in investigation cases because of redundant coverage (when several officers with body cams arrived at the scene). 379 videos documented significant incidents in which police detained individuals for interrogation. 20 videos were handed over to the Police Prosecution Unit, as an exhibit to be used in supporting indictments.
A recent survey conducted for the Israel Police sowed that only 40% of the public trust their local police. A follow-up survey showed a rise to 56% in those areas where body cams were being used. Also, 70% of respondents said they were pleased with the move to introduce body cams.
Officers who participated in the pilot project reported having better control and a better understanding of each incident, and that the duration of incident had been shortened. The officers said they were careful about their language and behavior, which was verified by the videos.
Police have announced their plan to adopt the project’s findings and furnish the entire force with body cams by the end of 2018. However, much needs to be done about the protocol of using the new devices. For one thing, the chain of evidence rules regarding the videos is murky, as the same officer of shoots the video also processes it and gets to decide whether or not it should be passed on for investigation and prosecution. Officers also turned their body cams off and on using their personal judgment as to which event was or was not of interest.