Policy Resource

The Greensboro, NC, Police Department recently developed a frequently asked questions card to make it easier for their officers to provide information on the department's use of body-worn cameras to community members wanting to view a BWC recording. The cards are provided to patrol officers to hand out to community members. The Greensboro police department has placed 1,000 hard copies of this card in the roll-call room at each of their four patrol substations.

To view a copy of the BWC FAQ card, click here. 

An agency's BWC policy is essential to the successful implementation of its BWC program. Below are example policies from actual BWC Policy Implementation Program (PIP) sites. These policies are publicly available and/or provided at the permission of these agencies. Please note that these agencies strive to continuously review and update their policies to ensure that they meet the needs of the department and the communities they serve. 

Body worn cameras are often regarded as the solution to improving strained police-community relationships and increasing police accountability and transparency. While BWCs play an important part in police reform efforts, they are just one piece to the puzzle. Implementing BWCs within a law enforcement agency is a complex endeavor with many different facets that agencies must take into consideration to ensure that the desired outcomes are achieved.

The ACLU has issued an updated Police Body Camers Model Legislation. The version 2.0, is a more detailed model legislation, incorporating a number of tweaks that we have been persuaded will improve the way implementing agencies deploy body cameras. One of the more significant changes involves what kind of video is subject to public release and what kind is not.

The federal government is subsidizing dash-cams and body-cams for local police in response to high-publicized incidents of police misconduct.  What does the footage really show? Should the public be able to see it all? We hear about the need for balance between privacy and so-called "transparency."

Click here to listen.

The CNA Corporation, Arizona State University (ASU), and Justice and Security Strategies, Inc. (JSS) provide training and technical assistance (TTA) to law enforcement agencies who have received funding for body-worn cameras (BWCs) through the US Department of Justice (DOJ) Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) BWC Policy and Implementation Program (PIP). Administrative policy review is a central feature of the TTA provided to the PIP sites. The TTA team developed a policy review process and BWC Policy Review Scorecard to assess the comprehensiveness of BWC policies.

The San Francisco Police Department has made their BWC policy available on their website, along with information about the progression of the policy over time, including previous drafts and work group meeting minutes.

The introduction of law enforcement body cameras raises a number of questions for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois.   At the core of these questions is the issue of how best to increase accountability and oversight of police officers’ conduct while not increasing and enhancing the explosion of surveillance and information gathering already being conducted by government. This memorandum  was developed by the ACLU of Illinois outlining the privacy safeguards they believe necessary to keep the focus on accountability and oversight of police, and preventing the use of body cams from becoming another broad surveillance tool.  

In an effort to address these questions and produce policy guidance to law enforcement agencies, the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF), with support from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office), conducted research in 2013 on the use of body-worn cameras. Drawing upon feedback from the conference, the survey results, and information gathered from the interviews and policy reviews, PERF created this publication to provide law enforcement agencies with guidance on the use of body-worn cameras.