State data solution makes most financial sense for agencies deploying bodycams

Sometimes, "big government" solutions make the most sense.

Taser International's body-camera data processing service, Evidence.com, may cost twice as much as the state plans to charge local agencies for the same service through the Department of Information Resources.

The El Paso Times (April 11) reported the most I've seen about Taser's cost structure for its body camera service. Here are the details of a contract the commissioners court in El Paso is considering:

The company offers 397 tasers, 250 body cameras, and a five-year contract for data storage that will hold the body-camera videos, taser videos, the sheriff’s in-car videos, and any interview camera videos that the department collects in criminal investigations, all for $1.7 million. The amount includes $331,000 a year for video storage.

So, $1,655,000 of the $1.7 million in Taser's proposed body camera contract would go for information services, not equipment. If the cost for data management is $331,000 per year for 250 cameras, that's comes out to about $1,324 per unit per year. (The county will delay approval of the contract so they consider it during their regular budgeting process over the summer.)

There is, however, a less expensive option. Dale Richardson of the state Department of Information Resources, told a legislative committee recently that his agency plans to leverage the state's two data centers to provide video storage services for bodycams and other law-enforcement video. They're creating  a "vendor agnostic" platform which would allow sharing data across agencies. Local departments would have a device on site where video footage from body cameras and dash cameras could be uploaded. DIR would store the video, back it up, and supply the necessary information management tools to make the data useful.

Richardson told the committee the program would be subscription-based and cost about $50 per bodycam per month, or $600 per year, so less than half the amount Taser has offered. Admittedly, the proposed El Paso contract also includes storage of additional video (which the DIR can also support), but the Taser-and-interrogation videos will take up de minimis space, and dashcam footage isn't nearly as voluminous as bodycams. Most of that cost is for the bodycam service.

What's more, because they're not a profit making entity, the more agencies which sign up with DIR for this service, the cheaper it could become thanks to economies of scale.

Bottom line, as Grits reported recently based on an analysis of the company's SEC documents, Taser treats bodycams as a loss leader, expecting to make its profits off of long-term data contracts like the one being considered in El Paso. But local agencies might be better served financially by only paying the company for equipment and using the Department of Information Resources' service to manage bodycam video.

To be sure, DIR's role as a repository won't answer every extant question about bodycam data. The agency needs polices to prevent video from being automatically shared with state fusion centers and to keep facial recognition tools from being used to generate large-scale databases about police interactions with the public beyond the video itself. Most people who cops talk to aren't criminals and their privacy should be respected. OTOH, those questions haven't been answered with respect to Taser either, although the company is gaining data storage contracts with many jurisdictions nationwide. It may be easier to regulate data sharing if all the sharing happens through a state agency and is subject to public oversight.

Tight budget times call for scrapping Big Brother

Saying "no" to a couple of ill-conceived, Big-Brotherish initiatives in the Department of Public Safety's exceptional items budget would save the Texas taxpayers $159 million in a time when budgets are tight. Neither are an effective use of criminal justice resources compared to other ways the state could use that much money.

For starters, in its list of "exceptional items" (pdf) in its legislative budget request, the Texas Department of Public Safety said it would cost $129,147,375 over the next biennium to implement the federal REAL ID Act. Strangely, that's about half the amount DPS said implementation would cost in 2007 (when the Legislature declined to fund the changes), but it's still a lot of money. Back then, DPS estimated the ongoing costs for Real ID implementation would be as much as $100 million per year after startup was complete - perhaps that number for the out-year costs will decline, too, now that Col. Tommy Davis, who was resistant to implementing Real ID, is no longer in charge of the agency.

Another DPS exceptional item requests around $30 million over two years to pay for the infamous TDEX database (a Texas' version of "Total Information Awareness"), which the Legislature declined to fund but which the Governor developed anyway using federal grants. This is as much an unfunded mandate as the Real ID Act, it's just coming from the Governor instead of from Congress.

In both instances, in the words of Bartleby the Scrivener, "I would prefer not to." As far as I'm concerned, both projects should scrapped and the $159 million spent on more worthy criminal justice programs.

Computerizing prosecutor case files a good use of asset forfeiture funds

Ever since the Harris County DA's office was criticized for stockpiling millions in asset forfeiture money, which was either pointlessly hoarded or used as a slush fund for pet projects by former Harris DA Chuck Rosenthal, interim DA Ken Magdison has been looking to use the money for more legitimate projects, in part to keep the Legislature next spring from dedicating some of that money toward other projects if it appears the big-county DAs aren't using the money effectively.

Most recently, Magdison approved $225,000 for "a uniquely cooperative program to digitally archive about 20,000 boxes of DA felony litigation files."

Archiving old files is a great start, but it would create even greater efficiencies to follow Tarrant County's lead and put CURRENT case files online on a secure system. Tarrant County has an "open file" policy, so the entire DA's file is scanned in and the defense counsel (with the proper password) has immediate, full access, reducing communication delays and time wasted by attorneys (who aren't the least expensive employees on the payroll, after all) haggling over who gets access to what information.

In Tarrant, the ADA and the defense counsel both have access to the exact same information about the investigation pretty much at the same time - a fact that makes the whole process run a lot more quickly and smoothly. In Tarrant, according to the local criminal defense lawyers association:

To access criminal case files of the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney over the Internet, defense attorneys may order the TCCDLA ECFS ACCESS DEVIC, "TEA Device" which allows them access to Tarrant County's Integrated Justice System Online. You must either be a member of TCCDLA or purchase a support contract in order to purchase the TEA Device.

In El Paso, too, DA Jaime Esparza recently told a conference at the Task Force on Indigent Defense, that the DA's Information Management System (DIMS) allowed defense counsel to get access to case files within 24 hours and facilitated more routine cases getting disposed of within three days or less, reducing jail costs, overcrowding, liability, relieving court dockets, and even freeing up space in the jail that's now leased out to house federal inmates and makes extra money.

Harris County already has a cutting edge information management system (El Paso's was modeled in part after Harris County) where prosecutors rapidly evaluate cases. (See excellent bloggerly descriptions of Harris County's system here and here, and a related article from Courts Today.) It shouldn't be a stretch for them to take the next step, following Tarrant's lead, to enact an open file policy and give defense counsel complete online access to the complete case file (with appropriate security - e.g., encrypted and password protected, etc.). Everyone who uses the system in Tarrant County raves about it.

There's no real downside and many benefits for prosecutors to give defense counsel full access to their case files, so why not systematize the practice? Especially now that we know full disclosure up front can help prevent accidentally convicting an innocent person. It can also prevent inadvertently violating Brady requirements to hand over exculpatory evidence if it turns out seemingly inconsequential data later becomes probative.

If the Harris County District has a lot of asset forfeiture money laying around to fund computerization of old records, the next DA, whoever it turns out to be, should definitely invest in a computerized open-file system to make day-to-day records processing go more seemlessly and prevent lawyers from even appearing to play hide-the-ball with exculpatory evidence.