Laserfiche WebLink
Rarely has a police technology been <br />adopted as rapidly as body -worn cameras <br />(BWCs) have in the past ten years. There <br />are a host of reasons why body cameras <br />became popular, including increasing <br />internal accountability, enhancing <br />transparency, facilitating investigations of <br />citizen complaints, as well as its uses for <br />officer safety training. <br />In January of 2020, the National Police <br />Foundation (NPF), in partnership with <br />Arnold Ventures, co-sponsored a one -day <br />conference, "Police Body -Worn Cameras: <br />What Have We Learned Over Ten Years of <br />Deployment?" This forum explored what <br />we have learned about body cameras— <br />both through scientific research and law <br />enforcement practice—in the years since <br />their deployment, as well as considerations <br />for future implementation. The conference <br />featured presentations by prominent <br />researchers in the field and discussions <br />with police executives based on their <br />experience with body camera programs in <br />their agencies. <br />As you will learn more in this report, body <br />cameras are potentially transformative, but <br />their use is not without complication and <br />controversy. When departments have body <br />camera recordings of high-profile incidents <br />such as police shootings, members <br />of the public often request release of <br />the recordings to view the incidents <br />themselves and form their own independent <br />conclusions. Release of videos may be <br />subjectively interpreted differently by <br />different individuals, and the camera cannot <br />capture the complete picture. Further, <br />even if a video demonstrated a shooting <br />is legally justified and in compliance with <br />policy, there may still be serious concerns <br />about the outcome. <br />Many departments are also finding out that <br />body camera programs incur high costs. <br />The initial small investment in hardware <br />is soon dwarfed by administrative costs <br />and data storage costs. These costs <br />are much of the reason that the initial <br />frenetic rate of body camera adoption by <br />law enforcement agencies has slowed in <br />the last few years. However, public and <br />law enforcement interest in body camera <br />deployment remains high, and these costs <br />have not proven to be an absolute bar to <br />implementation. <br />Police Body Cameras; What Have We Learned Over Ten Years of Deployment? 1 1 <br />