SPOKANE COUNTY, Wash. — The Spokane County Sheriff’s Office is exploring new ways to analyze the hundreds of hours of body cam footage taken each day.
Right now, body cams record everything from traffic stops to standoffs across the county. Screening all that video would typically take hundreds of man hours.
Soon, all that footage will be screened instead by artificial intelligence.
The Sheriff’s Office has been using its current body cameras for around three years. It says the hope is that this AI software will help improve the services deputies provide even more.
“It can make a really big impact on professional policing,” said Spokane County Sheriff John Nowels.
Right now, the Sheriff’s Office says it has little data on how the agency’s training programs affect real-world outcomes.
“This AI software is a way to start putting empirical data into that,” Nowels said.
Thanks to nearly $1 million federal grant, the Sheriff’s Office will soon be able to use this AI to analyze body cam footage and better understand human interactions.
“It can do it for us in a way that we physically couldn’t accomplish,” said Nowels.
While the software is used by agencies across the country, Spokane County is the first to apply this data toward improving its training services.
Through the use of biometrics, the AI software will be able to make assessments of emotions like stress, anger or excitement with the hope that it helps the agency decipher the causes behind these behaviors.
The Sheriff’s Office hopes to start using the software in February, with someone monitoring it in the first few months.
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