The Wall Street Journal today reports how camera phone photos and videos taken by criminals are helping to put them behind bars. Also, it’s getting easier for law enforcement officials to download camera phone images.
The article says, “At least a half-dozen small software companies are now peddling programs designed to help investigators download data from suspects’ cellphones without compromising the evidence. Earlier this year, the federal government's National Institute of Standards and Technology issued a paper outlining techniques for doing forensic work on cellphones.”
But the biggest help to capturing criminals is their own stupidity and/or ego that leads them to take photos and videos. A prosecutor in Nashua, N.H. says cellular phones provide valuable evidence in cases about 40 or 50 times a year.
Self incrimination
The WSJ cites a case of a chop shop owner (who steals cars and sells the parts) who proclaimed he was innocent of charges, but his phone’s screensaver showed him behind the wheel of a stolen yellow Ferrari. The article notes that because cellular phones typically are taken everywhere, they lend themselves to “spontaneous self-incrimination” by criminals.
Mark Godsey, a professor of criminal law at the University of Cincinnati, says people who have camera phones showing themselves breaking the law give up their rights against self-incrimination. “They do it voluntarily. No one is making them," he says in the article.
From what I’ve read, many criminals, including drug dealers, seem to like to take photos of themselves with guns, money and drugs. The deputy chief of police in Burlington, Vt. says camera phone photos of a juvenile holding a rifle on the roof of a school at night helped get a conviction on weapons possession, the article says.
“Drug dealers just naturally take pictures of their drugs and their money and their significant others,” says Mike Schirling, the police officer.
Promote your criminal actions!
Also, some miscreants aren’t content with keeping photos on their phones. They also post them on the Web. The assistant state attorney in Connecticut says high school students posted photos on MySpace of themselves destroying mailboxes with baseball bats, and she was able to obtain restitution payments for dozens of residents whose mailboxes had been affected.
Another category of criminal activity where camera phone images are used is sexual assault. Gary Kessler, a teacher of digital forensics at Champlain College in Burlington and a police consultant, says when defense attorneys see such images, “they no longer quibble about the charges.”
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