WINNEBAGO COUNTY, Ill. (WIFR) – A bottle of Wite-Out followed Winnebago County Sheriff Gary Caruana earlier in his career.
“When I was a road deputy, we’d take all kinds of reports,” recounted Caruana. “We’re sitting alongside of the street writing reports, and I remember we’d make a mistake, we had to Wite-Out eight sheets or something.”
It was an “ineffective” process,” the Sheriff argues – one that removed law enforcement from patrols for potentially hours to write case reports.
Caruana says a new tool offers a possible end to antiquated reporting and a start to faster writing: Axon’s Draft One Artificial Intelligence.
On May 23, the Office announced the “forward-thinking” step of implementing AI into the paperwork process. Using Axon’s body cameras, the software drafts a case report based on the footage’s audio.
“That pilot program, again, is cutting edge,” celebrated Caruana. Days after the announcement, the Sheriff sat down to share more on the incoming technology. “I love the technology. I think it leverages… our agency to continue to be that much more professional.”
According to Caruana, 8 of the Office’s nearly 150 deputies will first test Draft One.
On Axon’s “closer look” page, the technology and weapons company states camera audio is uploaded and auto-transcribed in the cloud. From there, a draft report narrative is drafted “in seconds.”
“No action is needed by the user to prep the audio file or convert evidence, and officers can generate their report draft within five minutes after they finish recording an incident,” states the closer look.
In a response to questions for the company, Axon added Draft One “has contributed to over 100,000 incident reports and saved officers 2.2 million minutes—that’s almost 4 years of writing reports 24/7.”
For Caruana, the tech’s “a force multiplier… it continues to be effective and efficient, which I’m all about.”
Civil Rights Backlash
In November 2024, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Illinois released a white paper against law enforcement using AI for reports.
“Police all across the country could be using false information unwittingly, likely,” warned Ed Yohnka, ACLU Illinois’ director of communications.
Speaking over Zoom days after Winnebago County’s announcement, Yohnka shares his concerns for technology disrupting the “neutral” process of case reports. He asserts these accounts from authorities should rely on body camera footage – not memory or AI.
“This actually puts in the middle of that process a machine that has been trained with biases – with inadequacies, with other issues – into that neutral process,” said Yohnka.
The ACLU’s research says Draft One uses OpenAI’s GPT-4 “large language model” (LLM) for reporting. The LLM trains on the entire Internet – potentially absorbing “racism, sexism, and other biases that permeate our culture.”
“If the reports become tainted or infected by this sort of bias, then that follows that case,” cautions Yohnka. With these reports being the first step in the justice system, he adds the impact on potential charges against suspects could be troubling.
“If you’re relying on some third-party to give your reason, then you don’t have to think about that. It’s going to provide the reason for you. It may provide the reason for you every time,” maintains Yohnka.
Since Draft One relies on an LLM, he suggests the technology could be putting common words/phrases together rather than cite facts.
“We’re already seeing the harms that can come the way in which simply to get to a result, they produce a result as opposed to producing a result that accurately reflects either the question and or what happened,” says Yohnka of AI’s generation process.
Referenced in the ACLU research, a study from October 2024 reported AI didn’t write case reports any faster than the “old-fashioned way.”
“If we run into that situation, well then we’ll go back to the drawing board… and reengineer it,” says Caruana.
The Sheriff mentions Axon offers Draft One for free to Winnebago County. If his office wishes to continue with the program, then a charge will be negotiated.
“It preserves the truth. It gets at 50%, if not more, more effective than writing the reports,” he holds. “The deputy and the detectives will have full control over it.”
Caruana didn’t have a specific date for when Draft One will start in Winnebago County. A timeline for how long the free “pilot program” will last was unavailable as well.
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