In addition to providing training and technical assistance, sharing related news updates, and directing agencies to the resources provided through the BJA National BWC Toolkit, the BWC team also provides commentary from BWC experts, including researchers, practitioners, and policymakers.
| Title | Author | Preview | Date Published |
|---|---|---|---|
| In View From the Field: Miami-Dade, Florida, Police Department | BWC TTA Team
| The Miami-Dade, Florida, Police Department (MDPD) is the largest municipal police department in the Southeastern United States, with over 2,800 sworn officers and 1,500 civilian workers spread throughout eight district police stations. The MDPD serves a population of over 2.7 million residents… | January 2021 |
| In View from the Field: Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD) | Keri Richardson, BWC TTA Analyst; and Monique Jenkins, BWC TTA Analyst
| The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has more than 1,200 local law enforcement agencies, which vary greatly in size and access to available resources. In 2018, the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD) applied for and received a fiscal year (FY) 2018 Bureau of Justice Assistance (… | December 2020 |
| Important Considerations When Establishing a BWC Policy Review and Revision Process | Bridgette Bryson, BWC TTA Resource Coordinator, with contributions from Charles Stephenson, and Tom Woodmansee, BWC TTA Senior Advisors
| Introduction A key tenet of a body-worn camera (BWC) program is a comprehensive, well-developed, clear, and concise policy. As such, one of the primary ways in which the BWC Training and Technical Assistance (TTA) team assists agencies implementing a body-worn camera program is through … | October 2020 |
| In View From the Field: Hogansville, Georgia, Police Department | BWC TTA Team
| The Hogansville, Georgia, Police Department first implemented BWCs in mid-2008 when former Chief of Police Moses Ector purchased two BWCs at an International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) Conference for a trial run. When Hogansville first deployed the BWCs, the various shifts shared them. The BWCs could not remain functional, however, because of their charging… | September 2020 |
| In View From the Field: Newton County, Georgia, Sheriff’s Office | BWC TTA Team
| The Newton County, Georgia, Sheriff’s Office (NCSO) is the primary law enforcement authority in Newton County, Georgia. Newton County began its body-worn camera (BWC) implementation in 2015 when it received its first BWC Policy and Implementation Program (PIP) grant; Newton County received a second BWC PIP grant in 2017 to expand its BWC program. NCSO has 273 employee… | September 2020 |
| In View From the Field – Camden County, New Jersey, Police Department | BWC TTA Team
| The Camden County, New Jersey, Police Department began its body-worn camera (BWC) program in 2015 with a pilot program. Camden County received its first Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) BWC Policy and Implementation (PIP) grant in 2016 and a second BWC grant in 2017. The agency employs around 650 employees, including 450 sworn officers, and is responsible for providing preventive and… | July 2020 |
| Optimizing the use and benefits of BWCs with refresher training | Jessica Dockstader, BWC TTA Analyst & Outreach Coordinator
| A study by the Arizona State University (ASU) Center for Violence Prevention and Community Safety published in March 2020 reported that only 34 percent of law enforcement agencies receiving funding through the Bureau of Justice Assistance Body-Worn Camera Policy and Implementation program provide refresher training for their personnel on the use of BWCs.… | June 2020 |
| Making Sense of the Increasingly Mixed Research on Body-Worn Cameras (BWCs) | Janne E. Gaub, PhD, BWC TTA Subject Matter Expert, Michael D. White, PhD, BWC TTA Co-Director
| Over the past five years, the number of research studies on BWCs has exploded, from just five in 2014 to nearly 120 as of December 2019. The studies address numerous outcomes including use of force and citizen complaints, officer and citizen perceptions, court outcomes, and officer activity measures (e.g., arrests and self-initiated calls). Some utilize “gold standard” randomized controlled… | May 2020 |
| In-View Commentary for the Commonwealth of Virginia Public Defenders: Effects of Police BWCs on Public Defenders | Janne E. Gaub, PhD, BWC TTA subject matter expert, Carolyn Naoroz, PhD, & Aili Malm, PhD, BWC TTA subject matter expert
| As the number of law enforcement agencies equipping officers with BWCs increases, so too has the amount of BWC research (Gaub & White, 2020; Lum, Stoltz, Koper, Scherer, & Scherer, 2019; White & Malm, 2020). However, these studies have almost exclusively focused on the effects of the technology on police behavior, policy, and practice. But BWCs have created a… | April 2020 |
| Audits and Compliance Reviews Can Strengthen Body-Worn Camera Programs | Scot Haug, BWC TTA Lead
| The rapid rollout of body-worn cameras (BWCs) by agencies across the country has been unlike the adoption of any other technology in the history of law enforcement. Societal demand for increased accountability and transparency drove the rollout. Many departments are now hitting full stride with their BWC programs and some are experiencing challenges. Over the course of the last year-and-a-half… | March 2020 |
| In View From the Field – Washington, DC Metropolitan Police Department | BWC TTA Team | The Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police Department began researching body-worn cameras (BWCs) in 2013 and began implementing its BWC program in 2015 with the receipt of a Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) BWC Policy and Implementation Program (PIP) grant. The agency employs approximately 4,500 personnel, of which 3,200 are assigned a BWC. During BWC planning, DC Metro decided to take a… | February 2020 |
| In View: How to Manage the Implementation of your Body-Worn Camera (BWC) Deployment and Improve Outcomes | Damon Mosler, Chip Coldren, & Michael White |
You have written your policy, you have selected your camera vendor, and you have trained your officers and deployed your cameras. Now what? Will your agency’s deployment be successful? Do you know if it was worth all the time, effort, and resources? Are you able to point out successes to your community and local officials? Are you able to identify challenges and develop solutions?… | January 2020 |
| In View Commentary: From the Field – Las Vegas Metropolitan, NV Police Department | Dan Zehnder, BWC TTA Lead | The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) was established in 1973 and is a joint city-county police force for the City of Las Vegas and Clark County, Nevada. With a sworn police force of over 3,000 officers, LVMPD serves over 2.2 million people. In FY 2015, LVMPD received a Body-Worn Camera Policy and Implementation Program award of $250,000 to purchase over 250 cameras. As one of… | December 2019 |
| In View: Digital Evidence Integration | Elliot Harkavy, BWC TTA Technology Advisor | Digital evidence integration has become an emerging topic of discussion as law enforcement agencies around the country increasingly deploy body-worn cameras (BWC). Linking data repositories of videos with the relevant case files in order for them to be usable for investigations and prosecutions has become a challenge for many agencies and their justice stakeholders. In direct response to this… | October 2019 |
| In View Commentary: Prosecutorial and Public Defender Perceptions: Anticipated Impact of Police Body Worn Cameras on Jurors' Decision Making | O. Nicholas Robertson, John D. McCluskey, Shakierah S. Smith, Craig D. Uchida, and Damon Mosler | This research studies how prosecutors and public defenders (PDs) in three counties adapt to body-worn cameras (BWCs) in their everyday practice and the perceived value of BWC video as evidence in their cases. More specifically, the researchers consider prosecutorial and PD notions regarding the effect of BWC footage on jurors’ expectations and the effect of BWCs on juror decision making. The… | September 2019 |
| In View Commentary: Understanding the Costs and Benefits of Implementing a BWC Program | Elliot Harkavy, BWC TTA Technology Advisor, CNA and Dr. Chip Coldren, BWC TTA Program Director, CNA | Recent news reports have discussed the costs and benefits of body-worn cameras (BWCs). A Washington Post article on January 21, 2019, reported that some police departments have abandoned their BWC programs, primarily because of the high cost of storing BWC footage files.[1] A January 27 editorial in The Buffalo News… | August 2019 |
| In View Commentary: Body-Worn Cameras – Understanding the Union Perspective | Sean Smoot, Police Union Attorney and law enforcement subject expert | As the implementation of Body-Worn Cameras (BWCs) continues to expand to police agencies across the country, officers are increasingly accepting and, in many cases, demanding the cameras.[1] Police recognize that BWC technology is here to stay, and the majority of communities expect their police departments to adopt them. Still,… | July 2019 |
| In View Commentary: Establishing Officer BWC Buy-In | Thomas Woodmansee, Senior Advisor at CNA, BWC subject expert, and former police officer and Dr. Renee Mitchell, Sergeant and BWC subject expert, Sacramento, California, Police Department | As the implementation of body-worn cameras (BWCs) continues in police agencies across the country, there appears to be an increase in acceptance of—and, in many cases, demand for—the technology by officers. Police recognize that BWC technology is here to stay and a majority of communities expect their police departments to adopt them. Still, officers and agencies do not uniformly embrace BWCs… | May 2019 |
| In View Commentary: The Evidentiary Value of Body-Worn Camera Footage: A Survey of Prosecutors and Public Defenders | Craig D. Uchida, BWC TTA Senior Advisor and Subject Expert
| This In View Commentary examines the perspectives and attitudes of Assistant District Attorneys (ADAs) and Public Defenders (PDs) about body-worn camera (BWC) footage. The study describes their views regarding several benefits and disadvantages of the use of BWCs in a court of law, specifically focusing on the context of time, expectations, and anticipated consequences. This is a summary of a… | April 2019 |
| In View: Body-Worn Cameras in Collegiate Law Enforcement Agencies | Janne E. Gaub, Ph.D., BWC TTA Subject Expert | Body-worn cameras (BWCs) have spread rapidly to municipal and collegiate police agencies across the country. The research and guidance on BWCs, however, has focused primarily on their implementation in municipal agencies. To date, only one study assesses their use in a collegiate setting.[1] Though collegiate agencies are similar to… | March 2019 |
| In View Commentary: Embracing Communication with the Public and Media: A Key Component of a Successful Body-Worn Camera Program | Laura McElroy, Subject Expert and Communications Strategist
| Officer-involved critical incidents often lead to turmoil and chaos for a community. They can leave officers feeling frustrated and even resentful of the perceived lack of support and leave citizens feeling angry and suspicious of their police department. While there is no easy fix for this type of divide, there are steps an agency can take to heal after such an… | January 2019 |
| In View Commentary: Implementing a BWC Program in a Tribal Community | Samantha Rhinerson, CNA Body-Worn Camera Training and Technical Assistance Analyst and Resource Coordinator | The Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) Body-Worn Camera (BWC) Policy and Implementation Program (PIP) has awarded grants to seven tribal communities across the United States from 2015 through 2018, totaling just over $589,000. Grantee departments have used the funds to purchase approximately 405 BWCs. This In View spotlights the experience of the Little Traverse… | December 2018 |
| In View from the Field: Regional Justice Information Service (REJIS) | Lily Robin, CNA Body-Worn Camera Training and Technical Assistance Analyst, with contributions from Joseph Durso, Analyst at Regional Justice Information Service (REJIS), and Chief Jeremy Ihler, Bellefonte Neighbors Police Department in St. Louis, Missouri. | 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… | November 2018 |
| In View Commentary: Community Voices On Body-Worn Cameras | Stephen Rickman, BWC TTA Lead and Subject Expert | Each jurisdiction and law enforcement agency that deploys body-worn cameras (BWCs) has a unique history, police culture, and circumstances. Community voices, like advocacy and faith-based organizations, police advisory groups, the media, social service organizations, and other community stakeholders, are important to consider when deploying BWCs. In some jurisdictions, these voices have… | October 2018 |
| In View Commentary: The Importance of Developing Your Own BWC Training | Thomas Woodmansee, Senior Advisor at CNA, BWC subject expert, and former police officer | 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… | August 2018 |
| In View Commentary: Releasing BWC Video to the Public: Policy Implications | Dr. Craig D. Uchida, President, Justice & Security Strategies, Inc.; Robert Haas, former Commissioner, Cambridge, Massachusetts Police Department; and Shellie E. Solomon, Chief Executive Officer, Justice & Security Strategies, Inc.
| In April 2018, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and its civilian-member Board of Police Commissioners made a major change to its body-worn camera (BWC) policy: the department will release video footage in ”critical incidents.” A year in the making, the new policy applies to: 1) officer-involved shootings, 2) a use… | July 2018 |
| In View: Body-Worn Camera Auto-Triggering Technologies | Elliot Harkavy, BWC TTA Technology Advisor, CNA | There have been a number of high profile incidents in recent years in which officers failed to activate their cameras until after the most critical moments have passed. For instance, in July 2017 Justine Diamond was shot in Minneapolis after she called 911 to report a possible sexual assault. [1] In September 2016, an unarmed man… | June 2018 |
| In View: Body-Worn Camera Compliance | Thomas Woodmansee, Senior Advisor at CNA, BWC subject expert and former police officer, with contributions from BWC experts Orlando Cuevas and Charles Stephenson
| 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… | May 2018 |
| In View: BWC Community Education and Creating Reasonable Expectations | Tom Woodmansee, BWC TTA Senior Advisor at CNA and fomer Police Officer | 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.… | March 2018 |
| In View: Key Trends in Body-Worn Camera Policies | Dr. Michael White, BWC TTA Co-Director and Professor at the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Arizona State University
| 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… | January 2018 |
| In View: What Have We Learned from The BWC Implementation Program So Far? | Denise Rodriguez, BWC TTA Project Manager and Research Scientist, CNA, Institute for Public Research
| In FY 2015, the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) funded the Body-Worn Camera (BWC) Training and Technical Assistance (TTA) program to help police agencies and communities implement their BWC Policy Implementation Program (PIP) initiatives and learn lessons from those initiatives for the benefit of other agencies and communities. Since then, the BWC TTA team has responded to over 200 TTA… | December 2017 |
| In View: BWCs and the Results of Randomized Experiments | James R. "Chip" Coldren, Jr., BWC TTA Director and Managing Director of Justice Programs, CNA, Institute for Public Research | Recent years have seen a number of new research studies addressing the effects of body-worn cameras (BWCs). Several of these studies implemented randomized controlled designs, the strongest designs available to detect the effect of BWCs with high confidence. Under randomized designs, researchers randomly assign an intervention (in this case, BWCs) to a treatment group of officers (those with… | November 2017 |
| In View: Police Body-Worn Cameras: Perspectives from External Stakeholders | Natalie Todak, Associate Professor, University of Alabama; Janne E. Gaub, Assistant Professor, East Carolina University; and Michael D. White, Associate Director, Arizona State University Center for Violence Prevention and Community Safety | Changes made within policing carry significant downstream implications for the rest of the criminal justice system and for surrounding communities. The relatively recent expansion in police body-worn camera (BWC) programs across U.S. police agencies represents one such change that will have a wide impact on stakeholders both inside and outside the system. We investigated perceptions of BWCs… | September 2017 |
| In View: The Impact of BWCs from a Defense Attorney's Perspective | Erika Bierma, Senior Associate at Stafford Rosenbaum LLP, Criminal Defense Attorney in the Eastern & Western Districts of Wisconsin and the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit | In the era of Law & Order, NCIS, Criminal Minds, and other television crime dramas, the public now expects clear and compelling recordings that document the commission of an alleged crime. At a minimum, they expect to see recordings of the arrival of the police on the scene and footage of the person charged with committing the crime. Body-worn camera (BWC)… | August 2017 |
| In View:The Impact of BWCs From a Prosecutor's Perspective | Damon Mosler, Deputy District Attorney, San Diego County, California | Upon learning that a local law enforcement agency was preparing to deploy body-worn cameras (BWCs), we as prosecutors had to wonder what this new evidence would mean to our presentation of cases in court. Would it mean more or less work? More or fewer trials? Better trial outcomes? In its simplest form, footage from BWCs could be considered just another type of evidence collected by… | July 2017 |
| In View: Addressing Police Accountability With BWCs and Victims Privacy | Mai Fernandez, Executive Director of the National Center for Victims of Crime | Although body-worn cameras (BWCs) can increase police accountability, they also can encroach on victim privacy and interfere with confidential communications. BWCs record sensitive information, the public release of which could be emotionally devastating and/or dangerous to a victim. The goal of every police department is to develop BWC policies and procedures that protect a victim’s right to… | June 2017 |
| In View: The Importance of BWCs from the Chief's Perspective | Harold Medlock, Chief (ret.) Fayetteville, NC and BWC TTA Subject Matter Expert | In summer 2015, my department received a complaint from a citizen that she had been sexually assaulted by one of my officers while the officer cited her for larceny. The complainant would not come to police headquarters, but instead provided her account by phone. The Internal Affairs Commander began an investigation and, two hours later, I learned that the officer was one of three in our… | March 2017 |
| In View: The Importance of BWCs from the Officer's Perspective | Wayne A Alsup, Research & Planning, San Antonio Police Department | Police cruisers across America; showcase such popular catch phrases as, “To Protect and To Serve” or, “Serving Our Community”. Perhaps replacing these phrases with a more tangible creed would be appropriate, such as, “Transparency, Accountability, and Officer Compliance.” With departments racing to outfit their officers with body worn camera’s (BWCs), there are not only concerns about… | March 2017 |
| In View: Interpreting BWC Video Footage | Seth Stoughton, Assistant Professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law | Following the intense public scrutiny of law enforcement since the summer of 2014, community members, politicians, and police executives alike have called for the adoption of body-worn camera (BWC) systems. There have been a variety of reasons offered in support of body-worn cameras, all of which coalesce around advancing three potential benefits: a signaling benefit, a behavioral change… | January 2017 |
| In View: A Response to President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing in Relation to BWCs | Dr. Michael White, Co-Director and Subject Matter Expert on the BWC TTA Team, Professor at the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Arizona State University | The recent review of the evidence supporting Pillar 3 Recommendations in the final report of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing raises several important issues related to police body-worn cameras (BWCs). The first issue involves the small but rapidly growing body of research on police. When the President’s Task Force final report was released in May 2015, there were… | December 2016 |
| In View: North Carolina's BWC Law | Laura McElroy, Technical advisor for U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs & BWC TTA SME | A recent survey shows almost all large police agencies in the United States are either using body-worn cameras (BWCs) or in the process of implementing the technology).i Many of these agencies give similar explanations for why they have chosen to embrace this new law enforcement tool—“… to gather evidence, increase transparency, and bolster public confidence,” according to… | November 2016 |
| In View: BWCs and Their Ability to Reduce Complaints against Officers | Dr. Barak Ariel, Jerry Lee Fellow in Experimental Criminology and Lecturer in Experimental Criminology, Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge | A recent study published by the University of Cambridge, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, RAND, and several active-duty police officers in the journal… | October 2016 |
| In View: BWCs and Police Accountability | Dr. Scott H. Decker, Foundation Professor at the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Arizona State University & BWC TTA Subject Matter Expert. | Concerns about racial disparity in police actions have prompted a large number of responses from governmental, advocacy, and police groups. Various reports have documented such disparities in the patterns of traffic stops, stop and frisk searches, arrests, officer-involved shootings, and deaths in custody. Efforts to understand and respond to the apparent disparities in how minority citizens… | September 2016 |
| In View: Commentary on the BWC Policy Report on Civil and Human Rights | Michael D. White, Ph.D., Arizona State University & BWC TTA Co-Director | This week the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and Upturn released a scorecard that evaluates the civil rights safeguards of police body-worn camera (BWC) programs in 50 U.S. cities. The Leadership Conference scorecard rates BWC policy on 8 criteria that are directly related to citizen rights and citizen privacy. We read their report with interest, as several of the agencies in… | August 2016 |
| In View: How BWCs Can Be a Risk Management Lens to Use of Force | Dan Zehnder, Lieutenant for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department & BWC TTA Subject Matter Expert | Body-worn cameras (BWCs) are rapidly being deployed in police departments around the country. These deployments come with a host of expectations, as well as challenges. Departments shouldn’t overlook, or underestimate, the simple premise that the day the first BWCs are deployed they begin to document department operations, policy, practices, and training in a detailed manner not previously… | June 2016 |
| In View:Use of Force Vs. Assaults Against Officers | Michael D. White, Ph.D., Arizona State University, BWC TTA Co-Director | Researchers from the University of Cambridge, RAND Europe, and their colleagues (Ariel et al. 2016a, 2016b) published two papers this week that explore this provocative question. The research designs employed are rigorous, the data are sound, and the results are intriguing. I applaud the researchers for making valuable contributions to the evidence base on body-worn cameras and their impact.… | May 2016 |
BWC Impacts on Staffing and Workload: Voices from the Field
Chief Scot Haug (ret.)
Implementing, expanding, or updating a body-worn camera (BWC) program comes with important considerations and a number of challenges. One particular challenge is that BWCs increase workloads and, thus, staffing needs. When it comes to BWC programs, agencies frequently ask, “Are additional personnel going to be required, and, if so, how do I determine the level of increase and justify the associated expense?”
The answer to that question: “It depends.” It would be nice to have a simple computation, such as “adding X cameras will require Y additional personnel.” However, such a computation isn’t possible because of the many variables involved in BWC implementation. One of the biggest is the variety of responsibilities that will arise from the BWC program. For example, does the agency have a robust IT infrastructure that can handle the rollout of BWCs? Does the agency have staff in place to perform auditing and compliance checks associated with BWC use? Will sworn or civilian staff be responsible for those tasks? Will existing investigative units be able to handle the addition of BWC footage to reviews of use of force, performance evaluations, and criminal investigations? Finally, can the agency manage media requests for BWC footage (and any redaction that may be necessary)?