Washington County deputies incorporating AI into policing in new pilot program

WASHINGTON COUNTY, Ore — The Washington County Sheriff's Office is piloting an AI transcription service that sorts through their bodycam video and drafts police reports on certain calls.

Corporal David Huey said it is meant to be a timesaver for the deputies.

“If this can save them even 20 minutes, 30 minutes, that’s more time they can spend out in the field doing their job.” Huey said.

The service is called ‘Draft One,’ and it transcribes Axon body-worn camera footage, then crafts police reports.

“Deputies I talked to yesterday said that it took them about 15-20 minutes for a report that would typically take them an hour and a half,” Huey said.

Right now, a select few deputies are part of a 60-day pilot program with Draft One, where they are using the AI transcription tool for calls like DUII, theft and trespassing.

Corporal Huey said that in his experience, the program has been very accurate and added that there are safeguards in place to ensure the reports are factual.

"It's going to force the deputy to interact with all the different parts of the report to make sure that it is true and accurate, and then there’s a minimum of 20% of the report that the deputy has to adjust or make fixes to,” Huey said.

As an example, the transcription of the conversation KGW and the corporal had contained a glaring error.

“So, in this instance, it put in an error purposely that I would have to find, and it says, ‘The escape plan involved turning the walls into cheese using a mysterious device,’ which obviously had nothing to do with our conversation,” Huey said.

Huey added that the deputy has to go in and include that human element that AI can’t get from just words.

“There are feelings about that interaction, like maybe there was tensing of fists or something that the dictation part of it is not going to catch,” Huey said.

Huey said that all of the data from the body-worn camera transcripts and report drafts are securely stored within the Axon network

At the end of the 60-day pilot program, the Washington County district attorney and sheriff's office will determine if it will be implemented long term.