On any given day, Los Angeles police officers record roughly 8,000 interactions with the public on body-worn cameras. Most of the footage goes unseen. The city spent millions on the cameras to help provide transparency and accountability, but LAPD officials say they don't have enough personnel to monitor the countless hours of recordings. The department has also struggled to keep tabs on whether officers are turning off their cameras in violation of department rules -- as members of a disbanded gang unit from the Mission division are suspected of doing in order to cover up thefts, unlawful searches, and other alleged misconduct. A recent internal report suggested lapses in body-cam activation are more widespread than the department has previously let on, and that its system for auditing compliance falls short.

Researchers will use artificial intelligence to analyze the tone and word choice that LAPD officers use during traffic stops, the department announced Tuesday, part of a broader study of whether police language sometimes unnecessarily escalates public encounters. Findings from the study, conducted by researchers from USC and elsewhere, will be used to help train officers on how best to navigate encounters with the public and to "promote accountability," said Cmdr. Machine learning, she said at a meeting of the Board of Police Commissioners, "is in its infancy, but will undoubtedly become a profound element in officer training in the future." Over three years, researchers will review body camera footage from roughly 1,000 traffic stops, then develop criteria on what constitutes an appropriate interaction based on public and office feedback and a review of the department's policies, according to Benjamin A.T. Graham, an associate professor of international relations at USC and one of the study's authors. These criteria will then be fed into a machine learning program, which will "learn" how to review videos on its own and flag instances where officers cross the line, Graham said.

Axon, the company formerly known as Taser and which provides the majority of police body cameras, has a few new tech tools for cops that could cut down on paperwork and improve response times. But at a time when the fundamental means and mission of police is being questioned, is this what's really needed? Even the company's CEO has reservations. The new products Axon is delivering will no doubt be useful for police and emergency personnel across the country. The first is the ability to automatically transcribe voices on body camera footage (using machine learning, naturally).

Police officers, regardless of their race and background, speak less respectfully to black members of the public than those who are white, according to new research. Scientists studied body cam footage collected from California's Oakland Police Department and analysed the language used by officers during routine traffic stops. They asked study participants, who did not know the race or gender of those involved in the exchange, to read transcripts of some of these interactions and rate how polite and respectful the officers were. The team plugged this information into an artificially intelligent computer which analysed more than 180 hours of body camera footage from almost 1,000 stops. The results found'racial disparities' in the level of respect shown by officers, and the researchers claim that even officers who are not racist exhibit the bias.