Law enforcement technologyPolice still use sketch artists despite advances in surveillance technology

Despite the growing use of surveillance technology to monitor public and private spaces, some law enforcement departments still rely on composite sketches to help solve crimes. “There’s not always going to be a camera. Until we start getting to [an] age where computers are everywhere and Big Brother is watching you, for now the sketch artist is watching you,” said Joyce Conlon, police crime analysts and forensic artist.  Some police departments are continuing the use of hand-drawn sketches because they are the only available method to identify suspects, but some departments are continuing to use  the tool for nostalgia. 

The Washington Post reports that surveillance videos become more powerful when combined with composite sketches. The Post recently reported about a case in which officers obtained a video of a suspect attacking a 71-year-old man, who  ended up in a coma. The man later identified his attacker through a sketch compiled by Conlon. Investigators received information that led up to a man resembling the suspect, but video surveillance revealed that the accused man’s body type did not resemble the suspect’s 200-pound body recorded on camera.

Suzanne Lowe Birdwell, chair of the Forensic Art Subcommittee for the International Association for Identification, said that although video surveillance often captures poor quality images, these images do provide information on a suspect’s attire and body type. When video surveillance footage matches facial features from composites, both tools become more powerful.

“The videos help prove up the crime, but they don’t identify,” said Birdwell, a forensic artist for the Texas Department of Public Safety. Composite artists are familiar with the anatomy of a face, and when they combine their interviewing skills of victims and witnesses to their artistic talent, they become invaluable. “Technology and machinery is cold,” said Wayne Promisel, a detective at the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office and former Fairfax County police detective. “It is also missing the ability to ask the questions in a certain way in an interview while having a sense of compassion” for victims.

Some police departments have adopted composite-generating software which allows officers and witnesses to select features from a database and then compile a single face. John Dassoulas, a sketch artist for Montgomery County police in Maryland, uses the software to create about twenty to thirty composites a year, just half the demand from a decade ago.

“The role of the police sketch artist will be greatly diminished over time through the use of an effective software solution and the proliferation of surveillance videos,” said forensic artist Michael Streed, who has also developed the composite-generating software Sketch Cop.

Critics of composites claim that law enforcement agencies do not have a confirmed arrest and conviction rate that can be attributed to sketches. Many composite artists are also unable to confirm how many of their sketches have helped close a case. When misused, composites may contribute to racial profiling, false arrests, and wrongful convictions. “There are a bunch of studies that explain in great detail why it doesn’t work, but nothing has apparently persuaded people to stop using these things,” said John Watson, a journalism professor at American University who studies the ethics and effectiveness of composite sketches in the criminal justice system and the media.