As police departments across the United States embrace the use of police body-worn cameras (“BWCs”), it is imperative that prosecutors be involved in the uptake process as early as possible. The cameras will inevitably capture a great deal of evidentiary material that will be used in every type of criminal prosecution. Thus, systems and policies must be developed to ensure that this evidence is properly captured and delivered to the prosecutor in a timely and usable way.
The Compensation Board is pleased to present this report summarizing the review by a workgroup of the impact on the workload of Commonwealth’s Attorneys’ offices of the use of body worn cameras (BWCs) by law enforcement officers within the jurisdictions they serve, pursuant to Chapter 2 of the 2018 Special Session I Virginia Acts of Assembly.
An agency's body-worn camera (BWC) policy is essential to the successful implementation of its BWC program. This document provides sample policy language that previous BWC Policy and Implementation Program (PIP) grantees have used in their BWC policies to sufficiently address objectives on the BWC Training and Technical Assistance (TTA) Scorecard. The Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) and the BWC TTA providers, CNA, Arizona State University (ASU), and Justice and Security Strategies Inc.
As a part of the Body-Worn Camera (BWC) Training and Technical Assistance (TTA) Program, funded sites can request an on-site TTA meeting. During these meetings, sites receive assistance and presentations from CNA’s cadre of subject experts on topics relevant to their departments. These topics range from community and media engagement, data management, and public release issues to prosecutor engagement, training, and officer buy-in. The subject experts in attendance facilitate the presentations and encourage discussion among the audience.
Abstract: Police departments use body-worn cameras (body cams) and dashboard cameras (dash cams) to monitor the activity of police officers in the field. Video from these cameras informs review of police conduct in disputed circumstances, often with the goal of determining an officer’s intent. Eight experiments (N = 2,119) reveal that body cam video of an incident results in lower observer judgments of intentionality than dash cam video of the same incident, an effect documented with both scripted videos and real police videos.
Executive Summary: Since 2014, many police agencies have adopted body-worn camera (BWC) programs, in many cases with little to no evidence-base to guide implementation and policy development. The research has expanded significantly since then, with well over 70 articles now published on the topic of BWCs (Lum, Stoltz, Koper, & Scherer, 2019). These studies have identified several benefits of the technology, including increased transparency and legitimacy, expedited resolution of complaints, and evidentiary value for arrest and prosecution.
ICMA released a fact sheet highlighting best practices for implementing body-worn cameras in local police departments, from the Body-Worn Camera Policy and Implementation Program of the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), U.S. Department of Justice. The development of the fact sheet was supported by a grant awarded by BJA and implemented by CNA and ICMA. For more resources developed by ICMA and BWC TTA, please visit the ICMA BWC project page.
In late August, a Texas jury convicted former Balch Springs police officer Roy Oliver of the murder of 15-year-old Jordan Edwards. The uncommon verdict largely rested on footage of the incident captured on Oliver’s body camera, technology the city’s police department implemented in 2015. As more law enforcement agencies nationwide use police body-worn cameras, states are developing and refining policy guidance.
In the first article (http://www.routefifty.com/2015/09/police-body-cameramusts/121502/) of our three-part series on widespread deployment of body-worn cameras (BWCs) by law enforcement, we argued that policymakers and law enforcement leaders face a broad and complex set of decisions that must be made now. These vital decisions divide into the same basic categories as most big data or technology policy questions:
This model policy is created as a guide to prosecutors who are working with law enforcement agencies to implement body-worn cameras. The policy includes “Use Notes,” which present and consider viable alternative policies that may exist for a particular issue. Also accompanying the model policy is a checklist outlining the many issues that should be addressed in a body worn camera policy. This model evolved from a policy originally created by a subcommittee of the CDAA Foundation, headed by David Angel of the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office.
