Tech uses ChatGPT software to generate police reports

LEANDER, Texas (KXAN) — At the Leander Police Department (LPD), longtime employee Luana Wilcox, administrative analyst, is the go-to person for innovation.

“I was an officer for 17 and a half years,” she said. “I’m the person who handled all of our technical stuff, so they created a civilian position to focus specifically on those things.”

She got to see firsthand how a new program called Draft One works. It’s from Axon, which makes body-worn cameras for law enforcement and other police products. Axon says the program can create police reports—in seconds—based on audio from a body-worn camera.

“The program is actually trained on real officer reports and real narratives that the AI can read and listen to and then create a format that conveys the information the way officers would have written it,” Wilcox said.

He believes this is a key time-saving measure, given that law enforcement agencies across the country continue to grapple with staffing shortages.

“As the city continues to grow, the number of applications we have to process has also increased,” she said.

According to LPD, the department has forwarded Project No. 1 to local prosecutors’ offices.

“We’ve heard from prosecutors that they feel uncomfortable,” Wilcox summed up the response.

Logan Campbell, a former prosecutor turned defense attorney, has doubts about the use of artificial intelligence in police reports in general.

“We’re losing the human element in this, and someone’s freedom is at stake,” he said.

He said that while police reports are generally not admissible in court, they do influence the actions of prosecutors and defense attorneys in other ways.

“We also have probable cause affidavits that judges look at to see if there’s probable cause to make an arrest or issue a search warrant,” Campbell said. “It’s scary to think that it’s not the police themselves that are making the report, but an artificial intelligence or computer that’s generating the report.”

According to an Axon spokesperson, the following safeguards are in place to ensure accuracy. The bullet points are quoted from an Axon press release about the software.

The officer is obliged to review and sign: Once the report description has been edited and key information has been added, officers must confirm its accuracy before forwarding it to the next round of human review.
Complies with audio data: Report narratives are written strictly from the audio transcript of the body-worn camera recording. Axon calibrated the baseline model for Draft One to prevent speculation or embellishment.
Controls to ensure correction: Each project contains placeholders that officials must edit by adding more information or removing the placeholder.
Draft reports are limited to minor incidents and allegations: The default settings limit draft reports to minor incidents and charge levels, excluding incidents that result in arrests and involve crimes.

Wilcox said before local agencies can begin using Draft 1, it will need to go through various approval steps.

“There is an established procedure in the justice system for accepting certain technologies,” she said.

Of all the Central Texas agencies that we heard from about this product, Leander was the only one that was specifically interested in Draft #1.

The Austin Police Department said it “wants to participate in broader conversations about AI with our city leadership. The Austin Police Department is weighing the pros and cons of different aspects of the work we do from an investigative standpoint. Given the rapid advancement of technology, it makes sense to explore how AI can benefit us as law enforcement to be more efficient and effective. Any use would need to be evaluated through a citywide approval process.”

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