Virginia Bill Would Expand Police Use of Facial-Recognition Technology – Public News Service

Virginia lawmakers are pursuing a bill which would allow police to use facial-recognition technology in certain cases, a year after the General Assembly passed a measure curtailing the practice.

The proposal cleared the Senate earlier this week. It would only allow police to use facial-recognition tech when investigating a specific criminal incident or citizen-welfare situation.

Sen. Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, said evidence gathered from facial-recognition tech could only be used for exoneration, not for establishing probable cause for an arrest.

"You can't use it for broad surveillance or monitoring," Surovell asserted. "You have to have a specific case you're looking at, or you have to have a person in a hospital bed, and you don't know who they are, and you're trying to figure out who's there, or you have a dead body, and you're trying to figure out who that was and there's no ID on them or whatever."

Last February, the General Assembly passed a bill barring police from using facial-recognition technology unless they receive prior legislative approval, a measure The Associated Press referred to as "one of the most restrictive bans in the country." Opponents of facial-recognition tech, including many legislative Republicans, argue it's an invasion of privacy and prone to inaccuracy and abuse.

A 2019 report from the National Institute of Standards and Technology found Asian and Black people are far more likely to be misidentified by facial-recognition technology. The bill would require any facial-recognition tech used by police to be at least 98% accurate across all demographic groups.

Sen. Ryan McDougle, R-Hanover, expressed concerns on the Senate floor Tuesday the tech could still be misused.

"In this bill, even with the policies and the restrictions in place, there are no penalties if you violate it," McDougle pointed out.

The measure also would require departments to log inquiries into their facial-recognition software, and then publish a public usage report at the end of each year. With its passage in the Senate, the bill now heads to the House and its committees for further deliberation.

Solitary confinement has been widely condemned by human-rights activists, and a new bill making its way through the Virginia General Assembly would restrict its use in the state's prisons.

The bill would limit the use of solitary confinement to 15 days, and set requirements before someone is placed in isolation.

Sen. Joseph Morissey, D-Richmond, the bill's chief patron, told the Senate Rehabilitation and Social Services Committee this month ending the practice has fiscal benefits, noting other states have eliminated solitary confinement and closed specialty facilities.

"Colorado closed a segregation facility built for 316 prisoners," Morissey reported. "After doing that, they saved $13.6 million in 2013 and 2014, without any negative impact."

The bill defines solitary confinement as isolating a person for 20 or more hours per day. The Virginia Department of Corrections (DOC) said it has ended "restrictive housing," another term for solitary confinement, in favor of what's known as "restorative housing," which offers people in prison a minimum of four hours out of their cell each day.

Kim Bobo, executive director of the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy, alleges restorative housing is yet another term for solitary confinement. Bobo's organization held a statewide series of prayer vigils this past Sunday in support of the bill.

"Whatever you call it, isolating people for long periods of time is torture," Bobo contended. "The DOC claims it has implemented new approaches for reducing the use of solitary confinement. Perhaps, but frankly, pastors and family members tell us different."

The bill passed the Senate Rehabilitation and Social Services Committee, and has been referred to the chamber's Finance Committee for further deliberation. A similar bill passed the Senate last year, but failed to make it to the House for a vote. If passed by the full General Assembly, it would take effect July 1.

Critics of Gov. Pete Ricketts' call for the Nebraska Legislature to fund a new prison argue the money would be better invested in programs with proven track records for reducing crime and preventing people from entering the criminal-justice system.

Fran Kaye, a retired professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a 25-year prison volunteer, said mental-health programs, addiction treatment and job-training programs can reduce crime and make communities safer.

"Prisons are really kind of an awful idea, when you come to think about it," Kaye remarked. "I mean, you don't want to be in a position where you're punishing people after they've done something wrong. You don't want them to do wrong in the first place."

Supporters say the proposed 1,500-bed prison, listed as a $240 million line item in an appropriations bill, will create jobs and is necessary to address the state's overcrowded corrections population.

Kaye cites research showing Nebraska can end overcrowding by limiting the use of stacked sentencing and getting more people back into communities through diversion programs and parole.

She added Nebraska is not a wealthy state, and only developers will benefit if lawmakers approve a project with a quarter-billion-dollar price tag.

"You get as much money for building a preschool as you do for building a prison," Kaye pointed out. "Why don't we build more treatment centers? You get as much money for building a treatment center as you do for a prison. Why don't we build more job-training centers?"

Pointing to the state's high recidivism rate, Kaye said Nebraska has done a poor job helping people who have served time heal and re-enter society as contributing community members. She believes building another facility will not make those communities safer, in part because prisons create an environment known to lead to violent behavior.

"Fear, shame, isolation, exposure to violence, powerlessness," Kaye outlined. "What do prisons create? Why in the world would we spend all that money on an institution that is best at creating violence, and is lousy at healing?"

January is National Human Trafficking Awareness Month, and combating the problem is especially important in Nevada, which is home to the largest commercial sex trade per capita in the country.

More than 5,000 people, mostly women and girls, are sold for sex in Nevada each month, according to a 2019 study from Creighton University.

Melissa Holland, executive director and a cofounder at Awaken, a Reno-based nonprofit that helps survivors of sex trafficking get their lives back, said the traffickers target local teenagers.

"Over the last four years," she said, "Awaken has seen victims come out of every single high school in Reno-Sparks and most of the middle schools."

All sex trafficking is illegal, online or otherwise, in Clark and Washoe counties, which include Las Vegas and Reno. But solicitation of an adult for sex is only a misdemeanor, punishable by a $1,000 fine or up to six months in jail. Brothels are legal in certain parts of 10 other Nevada counties.

Holland said she'd like to see the sex trade banned in every county - or at least, to have the penalty raised to what's known as a gross misdemeanor.

"We have a sex tourism community here, which unfortunately means this is where traffickers come to groom girls and to traffic them," she said. "Traffickers want to come to Nevada because the laws have done half the work for them, in terms of desensitizing people to prostitution."

Awaken and other groups like it offer transitional housing, a drop-in center and counseling, and make presentations at local schools. The Nevada Attorney General's website also has links to multiple agencies and programs designed to help victims.

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Virginia Bill Would Expand Police Use of Facial-Recognition Technology - Public News Service