SME Jason Lustig and analyst Quin Patterson have developed these tips for effectively writing a body-worn camera (BWC) policy, pulling from general writing strategies and their experiences reviewing BWC policies. These tips can be used as a guide when developing your agency's policy to keep the content substantive and concise.
Read the tips here.
Webinar: Lessons Learned from Critical Incident Investigations
The webinar explored the overall management of critical incidents and the role that BWCs have within that incident management. The main purpose of the webinar was to provide guidance on the essential aspects of managing a critical incident and share insight on how agencies work with each other throughout the aftermath of a critical incident.
Missouri’s St. Louis County Police Department (SLCPD) developed helpful applications of body-worn cameras (BWCs) by integrating cameras from multiple sources into one readily accessible platform. The integration of BWCs with automated license plate readers (ALPRs), Missouri Department of Transportation highway cameras, and other video sources allows users to access video data from multiple sources. This integrated system is managed by the SLCPD Camera Systems Unit (CSU), which maintains the physical devices and processes all of the footage.
This Corrections1 How to Buy Body-Worn Cameras (BWCs) guide can serve as a starting point for your correctional agency's body-worn camera purchasing process. Please note, this is not an exhaustive list of all issues that should be considered when purchasing BWCs. Work with any necessary internal and external stakeholders involved with your agency to determine what you want to achieve by acquiring BWCs.
The Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) Body-Worn Camera (BWC) Policy and Implementation Program (PIP) has awarded grants to several tribal communities across the United States from 2015 through 2022. Grantee departments have used the funds to purchase over 500 BWCs. This Infographic spotlights the experience of Gun Lake Tribe Public Safety Department, MI.
Abstract
Research Summary: This study uses interviews with 23 police officers from a small police department to conduct an in-depth examination of their perceptions of three critical but understudied areas related to body-worn camera programs: the implementation and policy-making process, supervision, and training. The focus is on understanding the factors which contribute to, or undermine, body-worn camera integration and acceptance.
Over the last few years, thousands of law enforcement agencies in the United States have adopted body-worn cameras (BWCs), and those agencies immediately had to deal with the tremendous amount of digital evidence generated by the technology. Digital evidence management (DEM) is the process by which an agency manages, stores, and transmits the data generated by BWCs and other devices (e.g., other types of cameras, cell phones). DEM is a critically important feature of a successful BWC program.
As more police agencies have adopted BWCs on their own initiative, and at least seven states have recently moved to mandate their use, BWCs are becoming a permanent fixture for the majority of police agencies. As BWCs continue to garner widespread support across varied segments of the public and of law enforcement, the benefits of this technology are becoming firmly established and agencies are demonstrating novel ways to use BWCs to improve policing.
Digital Evidence Management (DEM) encompasses a wide variety of devices, technologies, tools, and data, particularly as they relate to the criminal justice system (Goodison, Davis, and Jackson, 2015). This report is about body-worn cameras (BWCs) and the digital evidence (footage) created by the technology. The main purpose of the study is to understand and explain the key challenges faced by law enforcement agencies and prosecutor offices as they use BWCs routinely.
Since the inception of the BWCPIP program in 2015, CNA’s training and technical assistance (TTA) team has worked with hundreds of BWCPIP grantees. The CNA TTA team has worked closely with all types of agencies—large and small, urban, suburban, and rural. CNA has provided TTA to sheriffs’ departments, tribal law enforcement, university police, transportation authority police, school police departments, and park police. CNA has also assisted agencies in implementing BWC programs in county jails and with state correctional agencies.
