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Should police officers be required to wear body cameras?

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Some police agencies don't require body cameras because of the cost.

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Table of Contents

Table of Contents Ask the Chatbot a Question

Con 1: Police body cameras are too expensive and unreliable for many police departments.

Equipping police departments with body cameras is extremely expensive, as forces have to budget not only for the camera but also for ancillary equipment (such as a car charger or mount), training, data storage facilities, extra staff to manage the video data, and maintenance costs. Baltimore Police entered a body-worn camera program in 2016 for $11.3 million. As of June 25, 2020, the costs had tripled to $35.1 million. [26][59]

Many police departments, especially smaller departments with smaller budgets, have suspended body-worn camera programs citing rising costs of the cameras, maintenance of the programs, employees, and data storage. [27][28][29][30][60]

A trial in Edmonton, California, found that body-worn cameras had an insufficient battery length for daily policing, especially in cold weather when battery life diminished more quickly. [9]

A sheriff's office in Virginia stopped using body cameras due to the unreliability of their on-off buttons and poor integration with their IT systems that resulted in the system inaccurately matching camera footage to the officer wearing the camera. [31]

As the cameras, supporting equipment, and networks age, costs will only rise to maintain or replace equipment.

In a perhaps extreme but cautionary example, in Oct. 2018 a Staten Island, New York, officer's body camera burst into flames while the officer was wearing the device. He was luckily not injured, but the department was forced to recall thousands of cameras. [61]

Con 2: Police body cameras invade the privacy of citizens, potentially exposing victims and subjecting citizens to facial recognition software.

Recording police encounters with the public could lead to the public exposure of private medical conditions such as mental illness. Victims of crimes such as rape or domestic abuse may be further traumatized by recordings. Informants or witnesses may fear reprisal from criminals. People being arrested may fear the damage of public exposure, such as being fired from a job. [17][19][34]

Former Spokane, Washington police chief Frank Straub notes that "every day we are exposing persons challenged by mental illness, autism, developmental disabilities, addiction, etc. We are creating and making public recordings of their illness and potentially creating life-long consequences." [22]

Former chief of police Ken Miller of Greensboro, North Carolina, says that if citizens "think that they are going to be recorded every time they talk to an officer, regardless of the context, it is going to damage openness and create barriers to important relationships." [23]

One such barrier is fear of retaliation. A U.S. Justice Department report notes that some "people will be less likely to come forward to share information if they know their conversation is going to be recorded, particularly in high-crime neighborhoods where residents might be subject to retaliation if they are seen as cooperating with police." [23]

Another privacy fear, according to the ACLU, is that police body cameras will be worn as "roving surveillance devices that track our faces, voices, and even the unique way we walk" that could be used "to track, classify, and discriminate against people based on their most personal, innate features." [62]

Con 3: Police body cameras decrease the safety of police officers and negatively affect their physical and mental health.

Assaults on police officers were 14% higher when body cameras were present. Some people may respond negatively or violently to being filmed by police, especially those who may be under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or who are suffering from mental health problems. [18]

University of Oklahoma professor of law Stephen E. Henderson states that the use of police body cameras may be psychologically damaging to officers because "nobody does well to be under constant surveillance." [21]

Pat Lynch, president of the Police Benevolent Association of the city of New York, state officers "are already weighed down with equipment like escape hoods [gas masks], Mace, flashlights, memo books, ASPs [batons], radio, handcuffs and the like. Additional equipment becomes an encumbrance and a safety issue for those carrying it." [17]

Other potential health and safety issues include head and neck injuries, electric shock or burns from faulty or damaged equipment, and the spread of contagious infectious diseases if the units are shared. [20]

Discussion Questions

1. Should police officers wear body cameras? Why or why not?

2. In what ways might body worn cameras improve policing? In what ways might they complicate or impair policing? Explain your answers.

3. Should police departments consider other reforms in addition or instead of body cameras? Which ones? Explain your answers

Take Action

1. Analyze why police body cameras haven't stopped police involved shootings and other incidents at Wired.

2. Consider how you felt about the issue before reading this article. After reading the pros and cons on this topic, has your thinking changed? If so, how? List two to three ways. If your thoughts have not changed, list two to three ways your better understanding of the "other side of the issue" now helps you better argue your position.

Sources

1. Associated Press, "Britain Straps Video Cameras to Police Helmets," nbcnews.com, July 13, 2007

2. Rory Carroll, "California Police Use of Body Cameras Cuts Violence and Complaints," theguardian.com, Nov. 4, 2013

3. Vivian Hung, et al., "A Market Survey on Body Worn Camera Technologies," ncjrs.gov, Nov. 2016

4. National Conference of State Legislatures, "Body-Worn Camera Laws Database," ncsl.org, Oct. 27, 2017

5. Total Security Solutions, "Police Body Camera Basics, Part 1," tssbulletproof.com, Sep. 14, 2015

6. US Department of Justice, "BWC Program Update: Fiscal Year 2017," bja.gov, 2017

7. Tony Farrar, "Self-Awareness to Being Watched and Socially-Desirable Behavior: A Field Experiment on the Effect of Body-Worn Cameras on Police Use-Of-Force," policefoundation.org, Mar. 2013

8. University of Nevada at Las Vegas, "Study: Police Body-worn Cameras Reduce Reports of Misconduct, Use of Force," forensicmag.com, Nov. 30, 2017

9. Edmonton Police Service, "Body Worn Video: Considering the Evidence," www.bwvsg.com, June 2015

10. Tom Ellis, et al., "Evaluation of the Introduction of Personal Issue Body Worn Video Cameras (Operation Hyperion) on the Isle of Wight: Final Report to Hampshire Constabulary," researchportal.port.ac.uk, Feb. 2015

11. David Garrick, "Report: SDPD Body Cameras Reducing Misconduct, Aggressive Use of Force," sandiegotribune.com, Feb. 9, 2017

12. Maya Wiley, "Body Cameras Help Everyone - Including the Police," time.com, May 9, 2017

13. Charles M. Katz, et al., "Evaluating the Impact of Officer Worn Body Cameras in the Phoenix Police Department," asu.edu, Dec. 2014

14. PBS SoCal, "Three Police Misconduct Cases - All Involving Body Cameras - Had New Developments This Week. Here's What Happened," pbs.org, Aug. 11, 2017

15. Lynne Grossmith, "Police, Camera, Evidence: London's Cluster Randomised Controlled Trial of Body Worn Video," college.police.ac.uk, Nov. 2015

16. Emily Ekins, "Cato/YouGov Poll: 92% Support Police Body Cameras, 55% Willing to Pay More in Taxes to Equip Local Police," cato.org, Jan. 5, 2016

17. Michael D. White, "Police Officer Body-Worn Cameras: Assessing the Evidence," nicic.gov, 2014

18. Barak Ariel, et al., "Wearing Body Cameras Increases Assaults against Officers and Does Not Reduce Police Use of Force: Results from a Global Multi-Site Experiment," sagepub.com, 2016

19. Emmeline Taylor, "Lights, Camera, Redaction... Police Body-Worn Cameras: Autonomy, Discretion and Accountability," queensu.ca, 2016

20. Home Office (UK), "Guidance for the Police Use of Body-Worn Video Devices," college.police.ac.uk, July 2007

21. Stephen Henderson, "Fourth Amendment Time Machines (and What They Might Say about Police Body Cameras)," upenn.edu, 2016

22. Nancy La Vigne, "Evaluating the Impact of Police Body Cameras," urban.org, Aug. 5, 2015

23. Lindsay Miller, et al., "Implementing a Body-Worn Camera Program: Recommendations and Lessons Learned," policeforum.org, 2014

24. Jason Kotowski, "Money, Storage Primary Obstacles in Police Body Camera Implementation," govtech.com, Mar. 8, 2016

25. Bobby Allyn, "Philly Reaches $12.5m Deal with Taser Maker for Police Body Cameras," whyy.org, Oct. 23, 2017

26. National Institute of Justice, "Research on Body-Worn Cameras and Law Enforcement," nij.gov, Dec. 5, 2017

27. Laura Giles, "Pleasant Grove Officers Forced to Stop Using Body Cameras," heraldextra.com, Sep. 30, 2016

28. Rick Callahan, "Why Two Police Departments Stopped Using Body Cameras," csmonitor.com, Sep. 10, 2016

29. Nichole Mann, "Police Department Stops Using Body Cameras after Legislation," journalstar.com, Jan. 15, 2017

30. Benjamin Yount, "Costs Pushing Some Police Departments to Stop Using Body Cameras," effinghamradio.com, Sep. 25, 2017

31. Jason Shueh, "After Endless Glitches, Montgomery County Shelves Police Body Cameras," statescoop.com, Nov. 28, 2017

32. Reveal Media, "Uruguay Police Partner with Reveal in South America's First Major Body Worn Video Study," revealmedia.com, July 12, 2016

33. Matt Pearce, "Growing Use of Police Body Cameras Raises Privacy Concerns," latimes.com, Sep. 27, 2014

34. Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press, "Access to Police Body-Worn Camera Video," rcfp.org (accessed May 23, 2018)

35. Business Tech Staff Writer, "South African Police Officers to Wear Body Cameras," businesstech.co.za, June 24, 2019

36. Privacy International, "Every Police Force in the UK Will Soon Use Body Worn Video Cameras to Record Us in Public," privacyinternational.org, Mar. 3, 2019

37. Metropolitan Police, "How and When Are BWV Cameras Are Used," met.police.uk (accessed Aug. 12, 2020)

38. Carrie Dann and Andrew Rafferty, "Obama Requests $263 Million for Police Body Cameras, Training," nbcnews.com, Dec. 1, 2014

39. US Department of Justice, "Body-Worn Camera Program Fact Sheet 2015," bja.ojp.gov (accessed Aug. 12, 2020)

40. US Department of Justice, "Body-Worn Camera Program Fact Sheet 2016," bja.ojp.gov (accessed Aug. 12, 2020)

41. Bureau of Justice Assistance, "Body-Worn Camera: Frequently Asked Questions," bja.ojp.gov, 2015

42. US Department of Justice, "BWC Program Update: Fiscal Year 2017," bja.ojp.gov (accessed Aug. 12, 2020)

43. Bureau of Justice Assistance, "Program Update: Body-Worn Camera Policy and Implementation Program, Fiscal Year 2019," bja.ojp.gov, Oct. 2019

44. Bureau of Justice Assistance, "Program Update: Body-Worn Camera Policy and Implementation Program, Fiscal Year 2018," bja.ojp.gov, Nov. 2018

45. Urban.org, "Police Body-Worn Camera Legislation Tracker," apps.urban.org, Oct. 29, 2018

46. AP, "Timeline of Events in Shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson," apnews.com, Aug. 8, 2019

47. RAND, "Investigating the Effects of Body-Worn Cameras," rand.org (accessed Aug. 13, 2020)

48. Faith Karimi and Emanuella Grinberg, "Texas Ex-Officer Is Sentenced to 15 Years for Killing an Unarmed Teen," cnn.com, Aug. 30, 2018

49. Kevin Rector, "Caught Fabricating Evidence, Convicted Baltimore Police Officer Remains on Force 2 ½ Years Later," baltimoresun.com, Mar. 9, 2020

50. Weston Publishing, LLC, "Researchers Find that Body-Worn Cameras Decrease Citizen Complaints Against Police Officers in Miami-Dade County," prnewswire.com, Jan. 7, 2019

51. Shannon Prather, "Police Body Cameras Are Newest Tool against Domestic Violence," startribune.com, Apr. 26, 2015

52. University of Leeds, "'Tipping the Balance' against Domestic Abuse," phys.org, June 27, 2018

53. Axon, "Using Modern Technology to Combat Domestic Violence," axon.com, Nov. 14, 2017

54. Chris Kahn, "Exclusive: Most Americans, Including Republicans, Support Sweeping Democratic Police Reform Proposals - Reuters/Ipsos Poll," reuters.com, June 11, 2020

55. Nolan D. McCaskill, "Americans Agree on Police Reforms That Have Divided Washington, New Poll Shows," politico.com, July 14, 2020

56. Carl E. Heastie, "Assembly Passes Legislation to Require Body Cameras for All New York State Police Officers," nyassembly.gov, June 9, 2020

57. Ton Lutey, "Daines Backs Police Reform Bill That Includes More Body Cameras and Accountability," billingsgazette.com, June 18, 2020

58. Andrew Cuomo, "Governor Cuomo Signs Legislation Requiring New York State Police Officers to Wear Body Cameras and Creating the Law Enforcement Misconduct Investigative Office," governor.ny.gov, June 16, 2020

59. Mark Reutter, "Price of Baltimore's Body Camera Program Triples to $35 Million," baltimorebrew.com, June 25, 2020

60. Rick Callahan, "Some Police Departments Shelve Body Cameras, Cite Data Costs," apnews.com, Sep. 10, 2016

61. Ashley Southall, "Police Body Camera Bursts into Flames; New York Pulls 2,990 from Use," nytimes.com, Oct. 21, 2018

62. Matt Cagle, "California Just Blocked Police Body Cam Use of Face Recognition," ACLU, aclu.org, Oct. 11, 2019

63. US Department of Justice Office of the Deputy Attorney General, "Body-Worn Camera Policy," justice.gov, June 7, 2021

64. Urban.org, "Police Body-Worn Camera Legislation Tracker," apps.urban.org, July 14, 2022

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Police Body Cameras | Pros, Cons, Debate, Arguments, Law Enforcement, & Transparency | Britannica

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Should Police Officers Wear Body Cameras?

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Body cameras are a problem with privacy when it comes to recording interviews, nudity, and private residences.

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NYU Journal of Intellectual Property & Entertainment Law

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Advocacy of body camera policing reform has been growing in the United States in response to a widespread and increasing distrust of law enforcement among minority communities.[1] Body camera reform advocates have supporting statistics on their side. In 2014, the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF), with support from the Department of Justice, published the report, Implementing a Body-Worn Camera Program: Recommendations and Lessons Learned, extolling the perceived virtues of implementation of body cameras.[2] Broadly, police officials familiar with the use of body cameras state that the cameras increase officer professionalism, help agencies evaluate and improve officer performance, and allow agencies to identify and correct structural problems. As a result of these reforms, these officials further claim that agencies receive fewer complaints, and encounters between officers and the public have objectively improved.[3] Evidence also suggests that when police officers wear body cameras there is a decline in use-of-force incidents.[4]

However, body cameras have serious implications for the public's privacy rights, particularly when it comes to recording victim interviews, nudity, and private residences. The advent of widespread body camera use may be contributing to one of the most invasive forms of privacy violations and private monitoring in years. Crucial questions arise when dealing with the proliferation of body cameras in communities nationwide: Who has review access to the thousands of hours of footage collected and stored by police departments? Should body cameras always be on and recording, even when an officer enters a private residence or interviews a victim of traumatic crime or sexual assault? When should the public be able to view body camera footage? How long does an agency retain recordings, and to what extent may they be used in investigations? Privacy law will have to keep up with police policy and the increasing surveillance capacity of body cameras.

As a default, footage from body cameras can be considered public record. It's not hard to imagine a situation in which police officers wearing body cameras enter and leave a private residence without making an arrest-should that footage be available to the public at large? State public disclosure laws, often known as freedom of information laws, govern when footage from body cameras is subject to public release.[5] However, most of these laws were written long before the advent of body cameras, so there are gaps in statutory considerations. While states like North Dakota have passed bills that would exempt body camera footage that captures the inside of a private place from public record requests, often police departments are left to their devices to contend with the serious privacy issues at stake and fill in legislative gaps when formulating body camera recording disclosure policy..

Most state public disclosure laws have dealt with these considerations by means of exceptions. For example, footage related to an ongoing investigation may be exempted from public freedom of information requests. And, agencies have the power to adopt policies to protect the privacy interests of the communities they service. For example, police officers may have discretion to deactivate their cameras during interviews with crime victims.[6]

However, the law, in grappling with making these exemptions and discretionary policies, may have to make procedural concessions. It is questionable whether police officers should have discretion to choose when to activate their body cameras. It is difficult for the law to delineate every single possible encounter for which officers should have their body cameras turned on. Stops, frisks, searches, arrests, consensual interviews and searches, enforcement actions, and hostile encounters are a good start.[7] Then, the law must consider what happens when an officer fails to activate their body camera pursuant to a legal policy. Should unrecorded encounters be subject to exclusionary rules? When most, but not all, encounters are recorded for fidelity, the absence of a recording of an important encounter may cast doubt on its evidentiary value.

The alternative-always having body cameras active-seriously interferes with the officer's own privacy interest, too. Should body cameras be active when an officer uses a bathroom, or changes clothes? Do we really want there be a review process for dealing with footage and sound of an officer's bowel movements? And, knowing the invasiveness of constant recording, would that affect the enrollment rate for new cops, a profession with members who already risk their lives? These difficult questions demonstrate how privacy and policy interests may interfere with law enforcement and subsequent legal proceedings.

The goal of body camera programs is to foster transparency and accountability, but it should not come at the cost of civil liberties and privacy interests. Body cameras are not the end-all solution that early advocates had hoped for. In addition to the egregious invasions of a community's privacy, body camera programs can be prohibitively expensive. When weighed against the violations of civil liberties and privacy interests, communities have difficult considerations to make. The law still has difficult questions with which to grapple, and the proliferation of body cameras on police officers may serve to create the most invasive method of Big Brother, in-person citizen surveillance we've seen.
Alec Shapiro is a J.D. candidate, 2020, at NYU School of Law.
[1] Justin Hansford, Body cameras won't stop police brutality. Eric Garner is only one of several reasons why., Wash. Post., Dec. 4, 2014.

[2] Lindsay Miller, Police Executive Research Forum, Implementing a Body-Worn Camera Program: Recommendations and Lessons Learned (2014).

[4] Feeney, Matthew, Police Body Cameras Raise Privacy Issues for Cops and the Public, Cato at Liberty (Feb. 12, 2015, http://www.cato.org/blog/police-body-cameras-raise-privacy-issues-cops-public).

[5] Police Executive Research Forum, supra note 1 at 17.

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Body Cameras, Law Enforcement, and Privacy Law - NYU Journal of Intellectual Property & Entertainment Law

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Advocacy of body camera policing reform has been growing in the United States in response to a widespread and increasing distrust of law enforcement among minority communities.[1] Body camera reform advocates have supporting statistics on their side. In 2014, the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF), with support from the Department of Justice, published the report, […]

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Some citizens may react poorly when noticing that they are being filmed. This could create more assults against police officers.

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Police Body Cameras | Pros, Cons, Debate, Arguments, Law Enforcement, & Transparency | Britannica

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Should Police Officers Wear Body Cameras?

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Articles Thesis: Body-worn cameras have benefits while others have no impact, although there is not enough research to prove a side.

Quotes:

-"The main reasons that...police...[use] body-worn cameras [is] to improve officer safety, increase evidence quality, reduce civilian complaints, and reduce agency liability"

-Evaluations of 10 body-worn cameras...4...were found to have no, limited, or even negative effects"

-"There were...reductions in citizen complaints against police...who wore cameras, compared with those who did not[wear them]"

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National Toolkit

BJA's National Body-Worn Camera Toolkit is a clearinghouse for criminal justice practitioners.

BJA also has produced a podcast series on body-worn cameras.

Body-worn cameras are widely used by state and local law enforcement agencies in the United States. They are worn principally by officers in the performance of duties that require open and direct contact with the public. Despite their widespread and growing adoption, the current evidence regarding the effectiveness of body-worn cameras is mixed. Some studies suggest that body-worn cameras may offer benefits while others show either no impact or possible negative effects. The mixed results of these studies strongly imply that additional research is needed. In particular, more studies employing randomized control trials [1] are needed.

Use of Body-Worn Cameras

In November 2018, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) published a report on the use of body-worn cameras by law enforcement agencies in the United States in 2016.[2] This report showed that:

47% of general-purpose law enforcement agencies had acquired body-worn cameras; for large police departments, that number is 80%.

Among agencies that had acquired body-worn cameras, 60% of local police departments and 49% of sheriffs' offices had fully deployed their body-worn cameras.

Overall, in agencies that had acquired body-worn cameras there were 29 body-worn cameras in service per 100 full time officers (expected to increase to 50/100 by late 2017 based on the 2016 data).

About 86% of general-purpose law enforcement agencies that had acquired body-worn cameras had a formal body-worn camera policy.

Agencies not using body-worn cameras stated cost (hardware acquisition, video storage, system maintenance) to be the primary disincentive.

Are Body-Worn Cameras Effective?

According to the BJS report, the main reasons (about 80% each) that local police and sheriffs' offices had acquired body-worn cameras were to improve officer safety, increase evidence quality, reduce civilian complaints, and reduce agency liability.

Research does not necessarily support the effectiveness of body-worn cameras in achieving those desired outcomes. A comprehensive review of 70 studies of body-worn cameras use found that the larger body of research on body-worn cameras showed no consistent or no statistically significant effects.[3] This meta-analysis was rated by CrimeSolutions and resulted in a No Effects rating for the impact of body-worn cameras on use of force, assaults on officers, officer-initiated calls for service, arrests, traffic stops and tickets, and field interviews (i.e., stop and frisk). See Practice Profile: Body-Worn Cameras' Effects on Police Officer Behavior.

These mixed findings are further reflected in findings from evaluations of eight body-worn camera programs that have met the stringent criteria for inclusion in NIJ's CrimeSolutions[4]. Across these evaluations, researchers looked at a range of outcomes, including use of force, citizen complaints, arrests, and assaults on officers.

Six of the body-worn cameras programs were rated Promising -

Researcher looked at law enforcement's use of cameras to record interactions with civilians to reduce citizen fatalities using a subsample of U.S. police departments drawn from the Bureau of Justice Statistics' Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics Body-Worn Camera Supplement. Based n that study, CrimeSolutions rated the use of body-worn cameras to reduce citizen fatality rates as Promising. Agencies that acquired cameras had statistically significant decreases in fatal police-citizen encounters after three years, compared with agencies that did not acquire cameras. There were no statistically significant differences in fatal encounters between a reduced set of agencies with cameras and matched agencies without cameras. Read the program profile Effects of Body-Worn Cameras on Reducing Rates of Citizen Fatalities.

In Birmingham, UK, evaluators found that deploying body-worn cameras resulted in a statistically significant reduction in citizen injury, but no statistically significant reduction in officer use of force or injury. Read the program profile Police Body-Worn Cameras (Birmingham South, UK).

In Rialto, CA, evaluators found a statistically significant reduction in police use-of-force but no significant difference in citizen complaints. Read the program profile Police Body-Worn Cameras (Rialto, Calif.).

In Las Vegas, Nevada, and evaluation of the Metropolitan Police Department's use of body-worn cameras revealed that the use of body-worn cameras resulted in a statistically significant reduction in both complaints and use of force. Read the program profile Body-Worn Cameras (Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.

In Phoenix, AZ, evaluators found body-worn camera use resulted in statistically significant decreases in citizen complaints, and there were mixed results regarding camera use on arrest rates. There were no statistically significant differences in citizen resistance. There was a statistically significant increase in use of force, and less proactive, officer-initiated contact. Read the program profile Police Body-Worn Cameras (Phoenix, Arizona).

In a separate study in Phoenix, AZ, evaluators looked at a program that equips police with on-officer cameras to record contacts with civilians during intimate-partner violence incidents. Camera use was statistically significantly more likely to result in arrests, charges filed, cases furthered, and both guilty pleas and verdicts. There was no statistically significant difference in sentence length. However, there was a statistically significantly greater reduction in case processing time in cases not involving a camera. Read the program profile Police Body-Worn Cameras for Intimate-Partner Violence Cases (Phoenix, Ariz.).

Three of the body-worn camera programs evaluated were found to have no, limited, or even negative effects -

In Washington, DC, evaluators found no statistically significant differences in police use-of-force, nor the number of citizen complaints. Read the program profile Police Body-Worn Cameras (Washington, D.C.).

A multi-site evaluation of eight departments in the US and the UK found, overall, found no statistically significant differences in police use of force, number of citizen complaints, or number of arrests for disorderly conduct for police officers who wore body-worn cameras, compared with officers who did not wear them. Read the program profile Police Body-Worn Cameras in Eight Police Departments in the United Kingdom and United States.

In New York City, camera use had no statistically significant effects on number of arrests, arrests with force, and summonses issued after 1 year. Officers wearing cameras had statistically significant reductions in complaints filed against them and made more stop reports. Camera use resulted in a statistically significantly reduced likelihood of lawful stops and frisks but fewer subjects searched. Read the program profile New York City Police Department Body-Worn Cameras' Effects on Civility and Lawfulness of Police-Citizen Encounters and Policing Activities.

Based on these reviews and the existing research on the impact of body-worn cameras use, it is clear that further research is essential to determine the value of body-worn cameras use and potentially the more effective ways body-worn cameras could be deployed. Given the growing use of body-worn cameras, it would be best to build in rigorous evaluations as law enforcement agencies expand their use of this technology.

Primer on Body-Worn Cameras for Law Enforcement

Developed by the NIJ-funded NLECTC Sensor, Surveillance and Biometric Technologies Center of Excellence, A Primer on Body-Worn Cameras for Law Enforcement provides an introduction to body-worn camera systems. The report discusses the functions and features of body-worn camera systems and highlights issues and factors that law enforcement organizations should consider before and during implementation.

Read an abstract and access the full primer.

Technical Guidance on Body-Worn Camera Technologies

Agencies should consider how body worn cameras will meet their mission needs and requirements prior to procurement and use of the technology. To provide general guidance to law enforcement practitioners, NIJ, NIST and the FBI developed a table listing operating characteristics and associated functionality descriptions based on existing technical resources about criminal justice use of video.[5],[6] The operating characteristics and associated functionality descriptions in the table can help agencies determine what they need as they consider the commercial products available.

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Research on Body-Worn Cameras and Law Enforcement

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National Toolkit BJA’s National Body-Worn Camera Toolkit is a clearinghouse for criminal justice practitioners. BJA also has produced a podcast series on body-worn cameras.

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A solution for the expense of body cameras is a state grant program.

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(TNS) - More Massachusetts police departments than ever are embracing body-worn cameras, recognizing not just benefits to the public, but to their officers as well.

Yet the cameras can come at a steep cost, and a state grant program has proved essential for some departments to purchase the technology, particularly in smaller communities with tighter budgets.

For the public, the cameras offer a path to greater transparency. They may provide the only direct view of disputed police misconduct or use of force incidents.

But the cameras can also protect officers against frivolous or inaccurate complaints, Watertown Police Chief Justin Hanrahan said.

"It's a really good tool for many reasons," he said.

This summer, his department received $234,000 in state money for its first body cameras, which are affixed to the chest of an officer's uniform to capture interactions with the public.

But for the roughly 70-person department, body cameras could run $1 million or more.

"It's not just the cost of cameras and the technology to back up the videos," Hanrahan explained. "You need more manpower to manage it. It doesn't just fix itself. Who's going to manage the requests for public records?"

About a third of Mass. police departments received body cam grants

The Greater Boston suburb was one of 32 communities recently awarded a collective $3 million from the state's Law Enforcement Body-Worn Camera Program.

Over four years of operation, the program dolled out nearly $13.2 million to 139 police departments, nearly a third of the departments in Massachusetts, according to the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security.

"This technology has become an essential tool for law enforcement," Gov. Maura Healey said after announcing the latest round of grants in July.

"There's a benefit of having an objective record of what goes on in the field," Sturbridge Police Chief Earl Dessert said.

His department first received state money for body cameras two years ago. Last year, with another state grant, the department added software to help redact the videos. Finally, a roughly $20,000 grant this summer allowed the Sturbridge Police to upgrade its computer technology to make redacting footage quicker and easier.

"I said, let's go for it while this money is still available," Dessert said.

Using state grant money, the 16-person Winchendon Police Department introduced body cameras in 2022. This summer, it received another grant to purchase more dashboard cameras for police cruisers.

"It's becoming the norm," Winchendon Police Chief Daniel Wolski said. "I feel the public has an expectation that we have this equipment. So if we get a new cruiser and don't have the dash cam to put in there, and we respond to a call and someone asks for the footage and we don't have it, that seems to be an inadequate response in this day and age."

If a situation escalates, Hanrahan said police will want their cameras recording. In some instances where police officers have used deadly force against civilians, body camera footage has helped establish whether they acted in self-defense.

The Massachusetts State Police issued body cameras to its 2,200 members three years ago, a reform adopted after the agency's 2018 overtime scandal.

The cameras have shown success in repeated studies.

In one, Northeastern University researchers found there was a reduction in citizen complaints and a drop in police use-of-force reports when some Boston Police officers wore cameras as part of a pilot program.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts approves of the technology, writing in a 2016 position paper that the cameras can "protect both law enforcement officers and community members."

But the ACLU wants departments adding body cameras to "do it right," including by considering the privacy implications of officers recording their day-to-day activities and interactions with civilians.

Developing a body-worn camera policy

In Watertown, Hanrahan is pondering whether all public contact ought to be recorded, right down to city residents asking officers for directions. Should medical calls be documented by video, he asked, at risk of infringing on individuals' privacy? What about a call to assist with a sensitive domestic confrontation at a private home?

"Do you have them on there?" Hanrahan said. "That's the things we're ironing out in our policy."

Video footage can also be a massive drain on data storage space, which can be expensive to maintain.

Like other police chiefs, Wolski said the costs of body-worn camera technology present its main challenge - "particularly for small towns with a limited budget."

As with all technology, he knows the cameras will improve in the coming years, likely necessitating more spending to keep up with the times.

"Similarly to the iPhone, every year they come up with a better one," Wolski said.

Camera costs can increase quickly depending on the features police want, Hanrahan said. Some cameras begin recording manually, while others are activated automatically when an officer turns on their cruiser's blue lights or draws their gun. Some cameras upload their footage automatically when an officer drives within a certain distance of police headquarters. Some even provide supervisors with a live stream of their officers' cameras.

Then there's the added cost of managing the cameras - a full-time job in some departments. The state recommends assigning one person to provide full-time support for every 75 officers outfitted with body-worn cameras. The grant program does not support payroll expenses, so departments must cover any new hires tied to its body camera program.

Hanrahan became the Watertown police chief last November. After receiving the grant money, he's weighing different cameras and hopes to use them by the end of the year.

He said the city plans to cover any gap remaining between the grant funding and the expected $1 million price tag.

Wolski hopes state lawmakers will continue funding the grant program.

"I can't speak for everyone, but for myself, for the most part, the policing profession supports body-worn [camera] programs but the cost of maintaining a program can be a challenge, particularly for smaller agencies," he said. "I hope these grant opportunities continue so we can satisfy what appears to be a public desire for police to be outfitted."

© 2024 Advance Local Media LLC. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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