Police or law enforcement encounters are necessary parts of the criminal justice system in keeping cities and neighborhoods safe. According to a study by the US Department of Justice, there were 53.8 million individual police encounters in 2020.
Advancements in technology have allowed the recording of officers in the line of duty by use of body-worn or vehicle-mounted cameras (aka body cams and dash cams). Such recordings are routinely used during court hearings, investigations, accountability reports, and quality-control purposes — all of which stand to benefit from transcription.
In this article, you’ll learn how:
- Recording police encounters is necessary for accountability, evidence collection, and protecting officers from false accusations.
- Outsourced transcription can help law enforcement agencies be more productive, cost-effective, and organized.
- Courts can use transcripts to preserve evidence, enforce or contradict claims, and make the workflow smoother.
Why is Recording Necessary for Law Enforcement Encounters?
Agencies use body cams and dash cams in most states. Both law enforcement agencies and community members stand to benefit from recording police encounters. Here are some of the most notable advantages:
| Benefit | Details |
| Increased accountability | Body cams have led to more accountability in law enforcement. It also protects the constitutional rights of citizens and officers. |
| Lowered misconduct | Misconduct incidents have lowered with the use of body cams. Police reports can easily be verified. |
| Trustworthy image for agencies | When interactions during police duties are recorded and transcribed, agencies appear more trustworthy due to transparent operations. This, in turn, improves the public safety image. |
| Improved evidence collection | Evidence collection, especially time-sensitive ones, is improved. This benefits prosecutors and overall police work, especially with interviews of confidential informants and undercover operations. |
| Timely and objective incident recording | Immediate aftermath of incidents like domestic violence and assaults are recorded objectively, giving them more legitimacy in court. |
| Protection against untrue accusations | Officers and detectives can exercise their right to protect themselves from untrue or inflammatory accusations. |
| Reduction in malicious claims | Claims like sexual assault and brutality toward officers have often been disproven. |
| Fostering public trust | Overall, public trust in law enforcement integrity is improved with body cam and vehicle footage. |
Types of Law Enforcement Encounters
There are several types of law enforcement encounters, each with requirements and limitations.
Consensual encounter
A consensual encounter begins with an officer of the law initiating a conversation with an individual or the reverse — emphasizing the word conversation. The officer doesn’t approach the person for anything other than just to talk to them. There are no commands given. As far as the law is concerned, it’s just two people talking. Consensual encounters are mostly general inquiries in everyday settings.
In all instances of a consensual encounter, the individual has the absolute right to decline any requests by the police officer as they have no lawful obligation. They can also express their disinterest in continuing the conversation and walk away.
Terry stop or Investigative detention
Investigative detentions are a more formal type of police encounter wherein the officer can briefly detain and interview the individual. In certain cases, the officer can also perform a limited frisking to ascertain if the person is armed.
Unlike consensual encounters, Terry stops require a lawful reason. Specifically, the officer must have a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity to detain a citizen. Reasonable suspicion is a legal standard wherein any law enforcement officer can question and briefly detain an individual based on specific and articulable facts.
The term ‘reasonable suspicion’ entered the legal lexicon during the landmark case Terry v. Ohio in 1968 (from which the term Terry stop is also derived). In this case, police officer Martin McFadden noticed defendants John W. Terry and Richard Chilton (along with another person) repeatedly walking in front of a store and looking through the window on every return.
McFadden, suspecting the men were casing the place in preparation for a robbery, stopped the group and conducted a short frisk. The search led to the discovery of two pistols on Terry and Chilton. The subsequent criminal charge solidified the standard of reasonable suspicion in police encounters.
Traffic stops
Traffic stops are similar to a Terry stop; however, they are in a vehicular setting. A routine traffic stop happens when a police officer flags down a driver due to specific and articulable facts such as speeding, erratic driving behavior, running red lights, or having expired tags. Officers conducting traffic stops may question the individual, request identification, and conduct a cursory search of the visible parts of the vehicle.
Arrests
Arrests are a more severe type of police encounter wherein the officer or officers take an individual into custody due to alleged criminal activity. This type of encounter has several qualifying factors, which may or may not vary depending on jurisdiction. However, all cases must have one thing to justify an arrest: probable cause.
Probable cause is a higher legal standard than reasonable suspicion, which means the arresting officer has enough tangible evidence on top of specific and articulable facts to suspect that the person indicated has committed or is about to commit a crime. In law, probable cause sits between reasonable suspicion (the lower end) and beyond reasonable doubt (the higher end). It is important to establish full objectivity to establish probable cause.
Arrests may come with search warrants, which legally allow officers to conduct a thorough search and check in the person’s home, car, or business. Judges grant such warrants when there is probable cause.
Why Transcribe Your Recordings Using Outsourced Transcription Services
Transcription service providers help with police encounters the same way they help with other law enforcement recordings. Let’s look at some of the most noteworthy benefits of transcribing recordings of police encounters.
Positively impacts productivity
Police officers have a lot of paperwork to go through, and writing those reports might involve reviewing patrol and body cam footage to ensure complete and accurate details. Transcribing the footage can assist with making the officer’s workflow faster and more efficient. More efficient paperwork means our officers will have more time and energy to focus on their main responsibilities, like protecting the public. This can also mitigate overtime and alleviate burnout.
Cost-effective measure
Sometimes, transcripts are not optional, so police departments and law enforcement agencies must transcribe their various recorded material. In such cases, they are forced to either hire in-house transcriptionists or have administrative staff or, if there is a personnel shortage, ask the police officers themselves to transcribe the audio and video files. Such measures come with high costs, especially with police officers possibly logging unnecessary overtime in order to do the transcription work themselves.
Transcription service providers offer an excellent alternative to these in-house setups by reducing overhead costs. Companies like Ditto Transcripts do all the work necessary to produce high-quality and accurate transcripts at affordable rates, freeing up more manpower and resources for law enforcement agencies to allocate to their other duties.
Enhances documentation and review
A modestly sized police department with twenty officers for every shift equipped with body cams performing round-the-clock duties will generate about 480 hours of recorded footage daily. Most of the footage will be inconsequential. However, instances of police encounters with private citizens need to be logged and included in reports.
Having these recordings transcribed makes it faster to document and organize such encounters. There’ll be no need to sit through every recording looking for specific exchanges, as transcripts are digitally searchable in all formats and come equipped with time stamps, speaker labels, and other accessibility features.
Court use
Verbatim transcripts can be an invaluable resource for the prosecution if the police encounter advances to the point of legal proceedings. Transcripts can help preserve evidence and keep details of conversations intact, which can further be used to enforce or contradict any claim during a hearing.
Law enforcement transcription service providers may also offer customized formatting and generation of transcripts ready for printing and presentation in court. Additionally, reliable providers can also have such transcripts certified for court use. Certification means that the provider is willing to guarantee the accuracy and veracity of the transcript’s contents. Certified transcripts are given more weight in the eyes of the law because the transcription service providers are willing to testify in court about their authenticity and accuracy.
Security and privacy
Reputable transcription service providers usually offer discretion and comprehensive security measures to protect their clients’ data and sensitive information. This is especially important for agencies handling law enforcement encounters, as sensitive details like individual names, addresses, phone numbers, and other private information are routinely recorded.
Some (not all) providers offer CJIS-compliant services, which means all data transfers are protected under the Criminal Justice Information Services’ guidelines. For context, CJIS handles data for all US Criminal Justice System branches, from the FBI to your local county sheriff’s office and everything in between.
Some cases will require the release of records that contain specific information that cannot be released to the public. In the case of video or audio recordings, these details need to be bleeped out using video or audio editing software. Transcripts make redacting or expunging those details easier, ensuring that non-public information is unintentionally disclosed.
Police Departments Can Depend On Ditto For Audio And Video Transcription Services
Recording police encounters with body-worn or vehicle-mounted cameras offers multiple benefits for law enforcement agencies. The use of police transcription builds upon those benefits. It offers further advantages, giving more protection to police officers, allowing for better preservation of evidence, and making the whole workflow smoother and much easier for all parties involved.
However, all these benefits depend on your choice of transcription provider. Ditto Transcripts specializes in law enforcement transcription. All transcripts are produced with our industry-leading quality, 99% accuracy guarantees, CJIS-compliant security measures, fast turnaround times, and top-notch customer service.
Improve your department’s credibility and get transcription benefits in one swoop. Work with us and see the Ditto difference.
Ditto Transcripts is a CJIS-compliant Denver, Colorado-based transcription services company that provides fast, accurate, and affordable transcripts for individuals and companies of all sizes. Call (720) 287-3710 today for a free quote, and ask about our free five-day trial.
