Understanding the Impact of Police Body-Worn Cameras on Virginia Public Defenders
In the past five years, body-worn cameras (BWCs) have disseminated widely and rapidly to police departments across the United States (White & Malm, 2020). In 2013, only one-third of agencies had some form of BWC program, most of which were small-scale pilot programs of the relatively new technology (Reaves, 2015). By 2016, about half of agencies had BWCs, including nearly 80% of large agencies (more than 500 sworn personnel) (Hyland, 2018). The push for BWCs came at a time when there was a severe dearth of research from which to draw guidance or best practices.