Training

Resources about Training

In View from the Field: Regional Justice Information Service (REJIS)

The Regional Justice Information Service (REJIS) received a FY 2017 Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) Body-Worn Camera (BWC) Policy and Implementation Program (PIP) grant on behalf of eight law enforcement agencies in the St. Louis metropolitan area. REJIS is an Information Technology (IT) firm that serves government agencies, with a heavy focus on police departments. REJIS primarily serves police departments, courts, and jails in the St. Louis area; it also works with agencies spanning Missouri and Illinois. The eight agencies involved in the PIP grant were all prior REJIS customers in the St. Louis area; the departments range in size from 16 to 49 officers. The group includes municipal police departments and one university police department: Bellefontaine Neighbors Police Department, Brentwood Police Department, Bridgeton Police Department, Clayton Police Department, Moline Acres Police Department, Richmond Heights Police Department, Town and County Police Department, and the University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL) Police Department. Bellefontaine Neighbors Police Department, led by Chief Ihler, is partnering with REJIS to take a lead role in this effort.

FY 2018 Body-Worn Camera PIP Site Welcome Webinar

This webinar served as an orientation to the FY18 Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) Body-Worn Camera Policy and Implementation Program. The intent of this grant program is to help agencies develop, implement, and manage a BWC program as one tool in a law enforcement agency’s comprehensive problem-solving approach to enhance officer interactions with the public, combat crime, and build community trust.

In View Commentary: The Importance of Developing Your Own BWC Training

Police officers tend to have a love/hate relationship with training. Announce that there will be an Active Shooter Scenario-Based Tactical Training, and some will be giddy while others will dread it. The same goes for pursuit training, firearms training, emergency vehicle operations, investigations, and other training opportunities. One consistent response that I have seen in my policing career is that officers will demonstrate universal contempt for anything related to “policy updates” or “new technology” trainings. Many agencies who have been involved with the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s (BJA’s) Body-Worn Camera Policy and Implementation Program (BWC PIP) will routinely note that when they began their process, they did not completely appreciate or understand the complexities and dynamics of BWCs or the need to establish a customized training approach. BWCs are far more than just a new piece of equipment, and the steps of BWC implementation (including the initial decision to explore BWCs, policy development, community outreach, procurement, and implementation) can prove quite challenging to your agency.

Regional Approaches to BWC Programs

This webinar examined several issues related to regional approaches to BWC program design and implementation, including the benefits from a regional approach, compromises that will likely need to be made, and planning considerations. The webinar featured a brief presentation on general issues regarding regional models in law enforcement, presentations from several BWC PIP sites that have successfully implemented regional BWC programs, and provided an overview of the key considerations that agencies should attend to during the planning phase of a regional BWC implementation.

Beyond Patrol 2: Courtroom Personnel, School Resource Officers, and University Police

This webinar focused on the use of BWCs beyond the police patrol function. In addition to police patrol functions, BWCs are being implemented in a variety of contexts including in courtrooms, city services agencies, schools, and university settings. During this webinar, BWC TTA Partner, Arizona State University (ASU), reviewed the findings from their report on the use of body-worn cameras in environments outside of the law enforcement setting.

In View: Body-Worn Camera Compliance

When police officers hear or read the word, “compliance” as it relates to policy, what often comes to mind is, “what do I have to do to avoid getting into trouble?” For various reasons, compliance appears to be somewhat more challenging for police agencies when it comes to their body-worn camera (BWC) programs. We are all learning that introducing BWCs entails much more than just providing officers a new technology. Numerous challenges and dynamics present themselves when agencies implement their BWCs, including costs, storage, community expectations, officer concerns, coordinating with prosecutors, and ensuring organizational compliance to policy, to name a few.

Design Considerations for BWCs

More and more police departments are equipping their officers with body-worn cameras. To maximize the utility of body-cams, designers have considered issues such as camera-mounting position, camera-mount stability, methods of activation, and data transfer methods. The human factors/ergonomics community can make important contributions to the design of body-worn cameras and identify and address issues that could arise from the introduction of new technologies (e.g., biometric identification and automatic detection of concealed weapons).

In View: BWC Community Education and Creating Reasonable Expectations

As more and more police agencies across the country implement body-worn camera (BWC) programs, many feel that it is just a matter of time before this relatively new technology becomes an expected norm for the police. BWC programs have already demonstrated that implementation and outcome expectations are far more complicated and challenging than initially expected. It is difficult to identify another technology or tool that police have adopted which comes with such heightened public expectations and scrutiny. For example, compared to a department’s introduction of an electronic control device, a new caliber of firearm, or an improved records management system, the public clearly has more significant interest in and expectations of BWCs. However, most of the public and media likely lack a comprehensive understanding and appreciation about the limitations of BWCs. Some in the public who express distrust of the police may hope that BWCs will, “hold the police accountable like never before,” while at the same time there are many police officers who are eager to implement BWCs in hopes that they make clear the daily challenges, responsibilities, and decisions that officers face. Both perspectives are fair and may prove to be correct, and the police are in an excellent position to educate their communities about the complexities and realities of BWCs.

In View: Key Trends in Body-Worn Camera Policies

The CNA Corporation, Arizona State University (ASU), and Justice and Security Strategies (JSS) provide training and technical assistance (TTA) to law enforcement agencies that have received funding for body-worn cameras (BWCs) through the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) BWC Policy and Implementation Program (PIP). Administrative policy review is a central feature of TTA. The TTA team developed a BWC policy review process to assess the comprehensiveness of BWC policies through a BWC Policy Review Scorecard. 
 
Because the policy review process assesses comprehensiveness only and is not prescriptive, agencies vary in the way they deal with specific key issues. We recently completed an analysis of the BWC policies for 129 police agencies (covering 54 agencies funded in FY 2015 and 75 in FY 2016). Our analysis examined variation across five dynamic areas: activation, deactivation, citizen notification, officer authority to review, and supervisor authority to review. We examined two additional issues for FY 2016 sites only: camera wearing during off-duty assignments and activation during public demonstrations. The full report can be found online here.  
 
We identified 17 key BWC policy trends across these 7  policy considerations. They are listed below.
 
 Activation
(1) All agencies mandate and prohibit activation for certain types of encounters. No agency allows full officer discretion on BWC activation.
(2) Most agencies (60 percent) allow for discretionary activation under certain circumstances.
 
Deactivation
(3) All agencies provide guidance for BWC deactivation. However, officer discretion is more common for deactivation than activation.
(4) Officer discretion in the deactivation decision is more common in the policies of FY 2016 agencies. 
 
Citizen notification
(5) Less than 20 percent of agencies mandate citizen notification of the BWC. 
(6) About 40 percent of agencies recommend, but do not require, citizen notification of the BWC. 
(7) Mandatory notification is less common in the policies of FY 2016 agencies. 
 
Officer authority to review
(8) Nearly all agencies allow officers to review BWC footage for routine report writing.
(9) Less than 30 percent of agencies allow officers unrestricted access to BWC footage during an administrative investigation.
(10) After a critical incident, more than 90 percent of agencies allow officers to review their BWC footage prior to giving a statement. 
 
Supervisor authority to review
(11) Nearly all agencies permit supervisors to review BWC footage for administrative purposes, such as investigation of citizen complaints and use of force. 
(12) Most agencies give supervisors authority to review line officers’ BWC footage to determine compliance with BWC policy and procedures. Nearly all FY 2016 agencies (93 percent) allow for BWC policy compliance checks by supervisors.
(13) Most agencies give supervisors authority to review line officers’ BWC footage for general performance evaluation. Nearly all FY 2016 agencies (93 percent) allow supervisors to access BWC footage to assess officer performance. 
 
Off-duty assignment (FY 2016 only)
(14) The majority of FY 2016 agencies (69 percent) do not address BWC use during off-duty assignments.
(15) Twenty-eight percent of FY 2016 agencies mandate BWC use among officers on off-duty assignments.
 
Activation during demonstrations (FY 2016 only)
(16) The majority of FY 2016 agencies (71 percent) do not address BWC use during public demonstrations.
(17) Just under 20 percent of FY 2016 agencies require activation and recording during public demonstrations.
 
Though our sample may not be representative of police agencies nationally, the report provides insights into trends in key policy areas, as well as some benchmarks for agencies involved in BWC policy development and assessment. This analysis reinforces the idea that BWC policy should be responsive to local circumstances, as well as the needs of local stakeholders. Moreover, BWC policies should continue to evolve as evidence from research emerges, as states weigh in with policy requirements, and as BWC technology changes.  
 
 

BWCs and Use of Force Complaints

In January 2015, the Boston Police Department (BPD) committed to implement a pilot body worn camera (BWC) program for its officers. This pilot was intended to help answer policy questions about how the system would operate if and when fully implemented across the department’s 2,100 officers and to address concerns of officers and community members on the use of the technology. Boston Mayor Martin Walsh and Boston Police Commissioner William Evans committed to a rigorous evaluation of this pilot program. The BPD implemented its BWC pilot program in September 2016.

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