Joliet Police Department Announces AI Program Will Write Police Reports

The City Counsel of Joliet announced that it had entered into a multi-year agreement with an artificial intelligence company that will provide the city’s police department with access to a series of AI technologies as they become available. One of the first systems will be to implement the AI system “Draft One” starting in 2025, which will write and generate police reports for law enforcement in the city using inputs from the police officers. The first-of-its kind technology is designed to save officers time on paperwork and allow officers to spend more time on patrol and performing other law enforcement duties. “We really feel strongly that this is going to save a lot of time moving forward,” Mayor Terry D’Arcy said of the AI services. “It will make things much more clear.” While proponents tout the promises of a more efficient system that in theory will provide more detailed police reports, others worry about inconsistencies and other issues that could arise from the emerging technology. Often police reports may be the only evidence available at a defendant’s first appearance, pretrial detention hearing, or even the preliminary hearing, so the validity of what the police report contains or the narrative of the crime can be crucial at early stages of a criminal case for a defendant and automating that process could present unique issues in practice. Will police officers have a tendency to rely more on AI generated reports in preparation for their testimony? Will they seemingly make excuses for the inaccuracies and blame it on AI? Cross examination should prove interesting.

Experts Warn Against Rapid AI Acceleration in Law Enforcement

Not everyone is embracing AI technology as fervently as cities like Joliet, with a recent white paper from the ACLU warning that any rollout of AI technology by police departments should be slow and deliberate, encouraging trial periods and pilot programs to work out any issues they may present before they are implemented at scale. For example, the “Draft One” technology that the city of Joliet plans on introducing in the near future has received, “not-great feedback I would say on that — most agencies are saying no, they wouldn’t use it” according to the CEO of Axon, the company that offers Draft One. This is in part because some agencies have reported issues with automated reports, such as one Chief of Police detailing in a memo warning against the use of AI in drafting reports who had, “In one example we have seen, an otherwise excellent report included a reference to an officer who was not even at the scene.” Such errors could threaten to derail an entire case with inaccurate information that could place the entire report under heavy scrutiny of what is and what isn’t fabricated information. Police officers perform an essential function in our society, but their ability to deprive someone of their freedom demands extra attention and scrutiny to any accusations levied against the accused. As such, officers and prosecutors may find it difficult to hand over said responsibility to any emerging technology and the potential growing pains or shortcomings they may present. As senior policy analyst Jay Stanley writes in the white paper, law enforcement officers “have an obligation to … not do their work in ways that create injustices or other wrongdoings” in the name of efficiency.