Schenectady Police Department
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Civil Liberties Union
Civil Liberties Union
Greece Police Department
Based on information we’ve gathered, we have found that the Greece Police Department:
- Acquired Automatic License Plate Readers but did not produce any policies governing their use.
- Created a body-worn camera policy that left activation entirely up to the discretion of the officer whenever “appropriate” or “beneficial,” with no actual requirement that they be turned on at all.
- Didn’t produce any policies governing pedestrian stops.
- Did not have any policies related to bias-based policing, racial profiling, and interactions with persons with disabilities, or language access policies for people with limited English proficiency.
Department Diversity
No information was provided by the Greece Police Department regarding their personnel demographics.
Misconduct Data
The Greece Police Department reported 134 complaints from community members about police officers between January 2012 and May 2015, more than half of which were related to police conduct. Twenty-two of these complaints were substantiated/sustained, of which 14 resulted in disciplinary action taken.
Stops, Field Interviews, Search and Seizure
The Greece Police Department provided 72 Stop Reports for the year 2014, including 36 stop-and-frisks and 31 traffic stops. These reports indicated that 81 people were stopped, 90% of whom were men and 63% of whom were white. While Black residents accounted for 33% of those stopped, they accounted for only 6% of the town’s population.
Surveillance Technology
The Greece Police Department produced records showing that they had acquired Automatic License Plate Readers but did not produce any policies governing their use.
Automatic license plate readers (“ALPRs”) are devices that can be mounted on police cars or fixed on poles or on the roadside to scan the license plates of all cars passing by. These readers scoop up, at minimum, the license plate number of a car as well as its date, time and location. Without appropriate privacy protections in place, local governments using license plate readers can amass a vast database of the comings and goings of innocent people over a long period of time. They can even share the information with other entities. License plate readers can form the building blocks of a massive government database about New Yorkers, including their political and religious beliefs, daily habits and who they associate with.
While use of this technology is concerning on its face, the use of ALPRs without any policy in place to address privacy concerns and to limit data retention and sharing jeopardizes the civil liberties of countless drivers.
Use of Force Data
The Greece Police Department reported 232 uses of force between January 2012 and May 2015. Of these, 77 incidents, or 33%, resulted in suspect sustained injuries, of which one was fatal. Two uses of force involved a firearm, 31 involved a Taser, and 29 involved pepper spray.
In the incidents where the person’s race was reported, 65% were white and 28% were Black. 22% of people who had force used against them were women, and five people indicated signs of a mental health issue.