Computer says no: technology and accountability in policing traffic stops

Abstract

The Road Traffic Act 1988

Automated policing: the case of body-worn video

“…This is the result of both routine police checks and 'crackdown' operations. The process uses Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) to cross-check vehicles against the Police National Computer, which is linked to the Motor Insurance Database and the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, automatically cross-checking licence and insurance records (Kinsella and McGarry, 2011). Skolnick also refers to traffic policing as an example of the mass production of penalties.…”

Surveillance technologies and the crises of confidence in regulatory agencies

“…First, road/traffic policing is a clear example of the trend towards collapsing the distinction between ‘high’ and ‘low’ policing (Brodeur, 2007) in the context of the increasing use of surveillance technologies to facilitate essential but mundane policing functions (Goldsmith, 2005; Kinsella and McGarry, 2011; Wells, 2007, 2008). Second, traffic policing is one of the routine encounters between the public and criminal justice agencies that has significant potential to impact adversely on public confidence in criminal justice (Goldsmith, 2005; Hinds, 2009; Kinsella and McGarry, 2011; Neyroud and Disley, 2008; Wells, 2007, 2008, 2011). As Goldsmith, (2005: 452) argues:Enforcing traffic laws even in democracies poses a particular challenge for public trust in police.…”

“…The public (and media) response to the implementation of a camera-based system for monitoring vehicles highlights several problems with the criminal justice ‘techno-fix’. Within a relatively short period of time, public confidence in this surveillance system as a mechanism for making roads ‘safer’ began to show a marked decline, to be replaced with a growing popular perception that speed cameras were simply being used to generate income from law-abiding motorists (see, for example, Daily Telegraph , 2010a), and that number plate recognition technology used to trap ‘irresponsible’ drivers was being used inflexibly and unfairly, to the detriment of ‘normal’ drivers (Kinsella and McGarry, 2011). In their review of research into public attitudes to speed cameras, Gains et al (2005: 66) found that between 1999 and 2004 the percentage of respondents in the UK who agreed with the statement ‘cameras are an easy way of making money out of motorists’ rose nationally from 45 per cent to 55 per cent, but in some regions of the UK rose to over 70 per cent.…”

“…Although much of the existing literature on technology and criminal justice focuses on the ability of surveillance technologies to contribute to the efficient and effective operation of agencies (Jacobson, 2004), there is an emerging literature that critically examines criminal justice-related technologies in a social context, particularly in the case of surveillance (Andrejevic, 2007;Ditton, 2000;Hier, 2003;Marx, 2003;Norris and McCahill, 2006). Within these debates about the relationship between technology and criminal justice there have been several attempts to explore potential connections between use of technology by criminal justice agencies and attempts to bolster public confidence in the legitimacy and capabilities of those agencies (Haggerty, 2004b;Kinsella and McGarry, 2011;Neyroud and Disley, 2008). Several writers have argued that one of the reasons for the proliferation of criminal justice technologies has been attempts by criminal justice agencies to tap into firmly established cultural perceptions of the abilities of technology to deliver significant improvements in performance, efficiency and effectiveness (Haggerty, 2004a(Haggerty, , 2004bNunn, 2001).…”

“…But within these debates there is also a small and emerging literature which is beginning to explore an alternative possibility -that technologies utilized both by criminal justice agencies and by the public in their interactions with criminal justice agencies have the potential to undermine public confidence in these agencies (Greer and McLaughlin, 2010b;Kinsella and McGarry, 2011;Neyroud and Disley, 2008;Wells, 2007Wells, , 2008Wells, , 2011Wilson and Serisier, 2010). It should be emphasized that this is still a largely unformed and speculative aspect of the debate on technologies and criminal justice agencies, and this current article is another speculative and theoretical intervention in this debate.…”